Taking into account the questions I asked myself to help me focus this year, here’s what I want the next 12 months to be about:

• Personal: Reading the Bible. I love to read and have lots of interests. My default reading genre is theology (but recently I dabbled in lots of business, marketing, and financial crisis reading), but this year I am going to narrow my reading down to scripture. Quite honestly, I didn’t take enough advantage of great Bible classes in college and I want to go broader in my exposure to scripture. So, this year I am using the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan to read through the Bible this year. I like it because you read one chapter from four different books of the Bible every day, so you don’t get bogged down in certain difficult books for months on end as you would reading it straight through. I will also limit most of my reading to Biblical-type material rather than theological and philosophical. Do you have any good biblical studies books to recommend?
• Personal: Cycling. I took up cycling last year and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s a great hobby because it allows me to spend time with my wife, meet new people, stay in shape, see the countryside, and tinker around with keeping my bike running in top form.
• Personal: Baseball. My wife and I both enjoy watching baseball, and the recent success of the Rangers has made it even better. 2012 should be another good year for the Rangers, and we both look forward to taking in the season. Spring training will be here before you know it.
• Personal: Writing. I haven’t written much in the past year, and I miss it. The blog has suffered for various and sundry reasons, so I will likely re-energize myself towards blogging.
• Professional: Specialize & Systematize. Since starting my own business last October, I have taken on almost any and every project that has come my way. I’m seeing the need for specialization in order to better systematize and speed up my productivity. I have a few ideas for how to specialize and will be testing a few different areas out in 2012. Then hopefully I can pick one or two and really start to master them.
• Ministry: Teaching. Teaching is something I enjoy (and people say I am good at it), so I’ve reworked my job to do almost nothing but teach. My ten hours a week are generally spent teaching or preparing to teach. In addition to my job, I am entering into a new venture as a presenter with a non-profit organization, Call Incorporated. I will be co-leading a two-day workshop next weekend; depending on how that goes, it may blossom into something more.
• Ministry: Discipleship. However, I know teaching isn’t the end-all of discipleship, and I want to form some more relational discipleship structures in 2012. I want to intentionally be discipled and to disciple others.
• Ministry: Mission. The church exists for the sake of those outside of the church, but quite honestly, I haven’t participated in much mission over the last few years. I want to get in a better regular rhythm of mission in 2012.

What are you going to focus on in 2012?

Tomorrow I’ll post the things I am giving up to make room for the things I think are most important.