2010: 14 Vows

and 11 Goals

By BILL BRAY

As I have done for many years, I am again publishing my “Vows and Goals” for the New Year.  I do this so that family and friends can help keep me honest, pray for me and even help fulfill them as the Lord enables.  So, first here are my 11 goals for 2010 in no particular order:

1.      Let the mind of Christ dwell in me according to Philippines 2:5.  I am intrigued by the fact that the believer must allow the Holy Spirit to rule his thought life in order to please God and have peace (Romans 8:6). Fact is, if God doesn’t have control of your thoughts, he doesn’t have you at all!

2.      End the year debt free.  I want to owe no man anything but to love one another.

3.      Help my wife manage our contingency funds during this Great Recession.  For the sake of our children, I want to model stewardship in the way we oversee and handle our finances.

4.      Serve my chairman and president as best I can.  I want to submit to Dr. Bob Finley, help him anyway I can, and make his role as our earthly leader a bit easier.

5.      Advertise and communicate the vision of Christian Aid more effectively.  This is the best way I know to raise more support and prayer for indigenous missions and do God’s will on earth.

6.      Grow the size of our base of supporters at Christian Aid. We need to add at least 10% net to our numbers this year. In a recession, numbers are very important.

7.      Earn the trust and respect of my fellow staff members at Christian Aid.  We have one of the best mission headquarters staff in the world but unless we work as a team we cannot survive.

8.      Help pray forth more laborers. Our Lord Jesus said that we should pray the Lord of the Harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest (Matthew 9:38). I want learn how to do this.

9.      Build an all nations alliance.  Work to engage and encourage an army of volunteer co-workers to help send messengers of the Gospel to all nations. This is the task of the Body of Christ.

10.   Put Christian Aid ahead of all other interests. That means moving OSM and all my other projects to the back burner for now.  Indigenous missions must be first.

11.   Love God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself. Learn how to intentionally practice this at least daily in the year that lies ahead through corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

The historic church has identified 14 corporal and spiritual works of mercy and I have selected these as my 14 vows for the New Year.  I want to do these things, support these things and most of all help indigenous missions do these things around the world.  Here they are, seven of each, first by the traditional corporal order and then by spiritual order:

·        Feed the hungry

·        Give drink to the thirsty

·        Clothe the naked

·        Shelter the stranger

·        Visit the sick

·        Minister to prisoners

·        Bury the dead

·        Proclaim the gospel

·        Instruct the ignorant

·        Counsel the doubtful

·        Comfort the sorrowful

·        Bear injuries patiently

·        Forgive those who harm me

·        Pray for the living

I vow to measure all the missions I assist and the projects I help sponsor this year by how well they achieve these 14 acts of merciful love.  These are in fact, the 14 missionary causes I appreciate the most and would like to support supremely.

My parents, who were chaplains at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, raised me in a home where these vows were practiced from hour to hour but I have gotten away from them along with the rest of our culture.  Far too much of what we focus on in Christian outreach today is off target.  We as Christians need to repent of dead works. I suspect that part of the revival that is coming to the Body of Christ in these end times will be a revival of compassionate outreach. I certainly pray that these works will be part of my personal repentance and revival this year.