Start the New Year Well With a 30-Day Missional Living Challenge

Where does this last week of 2022 find you? It finds me reflective. Hopeful. And dreaming.

I want to start the new year out right with less busy and more being present. Less tied to deadlines, outcomes, perfectionism. More rested. Relational. Missional.

My 2023 (missional) word of the year

The word of the year I’ve chosen for the new year is umbrella. Something beautiful and healing happens when we look through the rain, notice the humanity of those near us, offer to share the shelter of our umbrella. I want to look for opportunities to share an umbrella throughout the year.

Umbrella sharing looks a lot like 2 Peter 1:5-7:

So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love.

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As we “[devote ourselves] to “lavishly supplementing our faith” with these qualities, we find it easier to see beyond the smallness of our own insecurities, inconveniences, and struggles. Umbrella sharing—sometimes literal and other times generously giving grace, listening with compassion, and responding with empathy—becomes our automatic response.

I keep coming back to verse 8 because it reminds me that these missional qualities are not exclusive. They are all available to all of us:

Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply, they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately.

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On this side of the world, the new year begins in the winter, when the trees are bare and the grass has lost its color. It doesn’t appear to be a season of good things growing. Yet 2 Peter 1:8 reminds me that this lovely list of virtues has already been “planted deep within.” The footnote here explains that “the Greek word hyparchō means to ‘begin below’ (or ‘within,’ like a plant growing beneath the ground.”

During the winter, the trees are still growing—the growth is just out of sight. Below the surface. We too can embrace the pace of winter. Focus on imitating Christ so others can imitate Him through us. Practice missional rhythms until they become muscle memory.

How to start the new year well

You feel the tug to grow deeper relationships with neighbors. To know and be known. To welcome and be welcomed into lived-in homes. Invite and be invited to conversation and connection over meals. But it feels overwhelming. Messy. Complicated.

A word of the year (like my word, umbrella) can be a gentle guide, encouraging you to lean into missional neighboring right from the start of the year. By the way, if you’re still deciding on a word of the year for 2023, grab my list of 200 missional word of the year ideas. For three strategies to help you pick your word, check out “How to Find a Perfect Word of The Year for 2023” on the blog or listen to episode 75 on the podcast.

But perhaps you’re more of a checklist person. You find comfort in the concrete. Printed lists. Visible progress.

Or you have a word of the year, but you want to jump in with both feet. Kick-start your trajectory shift. Begin January right.

Here’s how a 30-day challenge can help you start the new year well. It keeps missional neighboring simple. Doable. Practical. Gives you one baby step each day and a spot to check the box. Makes it easy to develop new habits.

Imagine how it would impact the rest of your year if you committed to missional living for the month of January!

The good news is that you can get my 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. To help you get the most out of the devotional, the bonus challenge is tailored to fit your unique style of neighboring.

Three variations of the challenge are included in your download. You’ll begin with the “What Kind of Neighbor Are You?” quiz to determine which challenge to take. Then print your challenge checklist and complete it as you read Cultivating a Missional Life.

If you don’t have a copy of my devotional yet, you can download the first week FREE here. And if you want the rest, grab it on Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle!

January can be so much more than a waiting period. More than bracing for gusty weather and looking forward to spring. To borrow Jennifer Dukes Lee’s wisdom in her book Growing Slow, “Winter is not just a doorway; it is a room all of its own, with treasures to be discovered and pondered.”

We don’t have to wait for warm weather to open our hearts, homes, lives to our neighbors. God is doing a beautiful work inside you now, and as your faith roots push deep, let that still-in-progress work show.

The ways you are imperfectly learning to trust, wait, and surrender can ripple out beyond you, warming weary hearts. “Hope is shining the faintest light in the darkest night,” as Brian Dixon says. And these days that are short and cold could certainly use a candle of hope.

A January blessing

May 2023 be the year that you decide to go first. Open up, be authentic, and let others in. Overcome the fear of rejection, the pressure of expectations, the nay-saying of our own limitations.

May we start well, in January. Grow deeper roots. Take baby steps forward. Shift our heart posture to missional.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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Let’s start neighboring the uncomplicated way!

Have you ever wished the people who live next to you were not just your neighbors, but your friends? The sort of friends who know the messy stuff and walk with you through it. Share meals, watch each other’s kids, generously lend tools, that ingredient you can’t cook dinner without, time.

P.S. Did you know that The Uncommon Normal is also available as a podcast? Tune in to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen!