A New Year’s Reset

A new year is always a great time for a reset. For most people, January 1 is not just another day on the calendar. We use it as an opportunity for a fresh start with our schedules, our fitness plans, and our budgets. 

But it’s also a time for a fresh start in our ministries—a time to let go of the past year’s struggles and embrace what God has in store for us this year.

Paul gives us a great blueprint for how we can do this when he writes, “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14 NLT). 

We all need this kind of reset as we head into a new year. Maybe your 2024 didn’t go as you hoped. You feel the momentum slipping away. A new ministry has struggled. Attendance and giving are declining. You’ve faced personal setbacks that have left you feeling uncertain about your leadership.

That’s okay. God specializes in giving us fresh starts. You see it all the time in the Bible. Just read the Old Testament prophets, where God constantly promised his people he was going to do something new in their midst. 

In the Message paraphrase of Hosea 14:6, God says, “I will make a fresh start with Israel.” 

And in Zechariah 10:6, again in the Message paraphrase, God says, “I’ll put muscle in the people of Judah; I’ll save the people of Joseph. I know their pain and will make them good as new. They’ll get a fresh start, as if nothing had ever happened. And why? Because I am their very own GOD, I’ll do what needs to be done for them.”

God’s mercies are brand new for you and your ministry, too. But if you want 2025 to be a better year, you’ll need to let go of some things.   

Let go of 2024’s baggage

Even in the best years, we have disappointments. That’s normal. You can’t erase them. You can’t have last year back. But forgetting the past, as Paul describes in Philippians 3, isn’t about erasing the past. Instead, it’s about not letting it control you or limit what God will do through you in 2025.

So what from the past year should you not let control you in 2025?

• Resentment – You can’t lead effectively when you’re weighed down by unforgiveness. It’s like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
  
• Control over outcomes – Often it feels like everything is riding on your decisions. But control is an illusion. God is ultimately in charge. He’s better at running your ministry than you are.
  
• Unrealized expectations – Impossible expectations that everything has to be perfect—your preaching, your leadership, your family—are a recipe for burnout.
  
• Past failures – Not everything went the way you would have wanted in 2024. Some of your best-laid plans flopped. Every pastor has some regrets. But those regrets about 2024 can’t change anything about 2025. Learn from your mistakes; don’t wallow in them. If you’re tied to yesterday’s failures, you can’t embrace the future.
  

Spend some time at the beginning of the year writing down the resentments, attempts to control outcomes, unrealized expectations, and failures that weighed you down in 2024. Name them. Learn from them. Then release them to God. It’s time to move forward. 

Seize the opportunities God has for 2025

Once you’ve let go of the weights of the past, you’re free to step boldly into the opportunities God has prepared for you. This new year isn’t just about leaving things behind; it’s about moving forward in faith.

Paul said he was “looking forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13 NLT). You can’t look behind and ahead at the same time. 

So, once you’re facing forward, how do you seize the opportunities in front of you?

• Say no to good opportunities so you can say yes to great ones. God doesn’t expect you to do everything. You don’t have the time, and not everything is worth doing. Say no to the opportunities God is not leading you into.
  
• Evaluate every opportunity. When an opportunity comes up, make sure it aligns with the vision God has given you for your life and ministry. Not every good opportunity is a good fit for you and your church. God has prepared some of those opportunities for other churches. Just because you don’t do it doesn’t mean it won’t be done. 
  
• Stay flexible. Opportunities come in a specific window. You may have specific plans you’re looking at for the upcoming year—but recognize that God can change them in a heartbeat. He may ask you to set aside one plan in order to embrace a new opportunity. Proverbs 10:5 tells us, “A sensible person gathers the crops when they are ready; it is a disgrace to sleep through the time of harvest” (GNT).
  
  Don’t be so infatuated with your plans that you’re not ready to gather the harvest when God prepares it for you!

The 2025 God has planned for you and your church will have both battles and blessings. Be prepared for both. Pursuing God’s best for 2025 won’t be easy. But God will be with you every step of the way. He will keep his promises.