2022 – What is to Come?

2021 is almost over, bringing yet more challenges, blessings and chances to glorify God. While this year did not go the way it was intended with He Brews Ministries, He Brews Faith or my personal growth, the road map for 2022 is being made more clear each day.

Back in May and June I created some posts here to give an update on where the ministry is and planned on going. Honesty is not always pleasant, and those marks were missed by a mile. There is much reflecting I have had to do, and maturing as well. If I were to look back on how things have been up to this point, I would have to give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Why the Silence?

First, before all else, I want to address why the silence.

A healthy ministry is one that is focused on God, serving Him and His Kingdom, as well as loving Him above all else. God blesses those who serve Him, and the greatest blessing one can receive is “well done, my good and faithful servant.”

I tried to do so much, and while the focus was on God I didn’t truly understand how. I knew I wanted to serve Him, spread the gospel and tell people about Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, but I didn’t know the how. I’m a perfectionist with ADHD which also meant I put immense pressure on myself to do something perfectly the first time. I often put 100%+ into everything I do, or I put 0%, there is no in-between. This definitely strained the relationship between I and the Father.

Ultimately I realized I had to take a step back, realize what faith is and where mine comes from, and go from there. A good friend of mine who I’ve been seeking mentorship from has often said “you need to know the gospel.”

I thought I knew the gospel. Jesus Christ bore my sins on the cross to save me from such a death, and instead gave me eternal life for my faith and belief of Him being my Lord and Savior. But many times I had been catching myself not living like it. Fear, doubt, worry, control have been a few areas where I started seeing the cracks in my faith.

I’m not a football fan, but a good analogy of my reset was a coach walking into the locker room, going up in front of everyone while holding a football and saying “This is a football.” It’s not demeaning or failure to go back to the basics, it’s life.

He Brews Faith

The podcast will continue. There’s been a struggle for a long time on the content and structure. The elephant in the room on this though is it’s because I didn’t make God the focus. Instead I tried to create content that would honor God, but was focused around instead of on.

For example it wasn’t until May of this year I finally could label my problems with focusing and the like as ADHD. The signs were always there, but no one took the time to try. I consider this God exposing my eyes to area of life that I can use to explain the impact Christ has had on me. Instead of talking mostly about ADHD, depression, etc.. I can share how God has impacted me with those situations, instead of despite of.

This is where the podcast is heading. Not a “woe is me”, but a “glorify God through me”. Being able to share my, and hopefully others, stories of the good and bad. Being a Christian isn’t easy, there’ll be times we need to walk through the mud puddles to get where God is leading us. There’s some out there who bring it all back to Christ, and others bring it back to man.

Blog Series

In July I started a blog series on Becoming a Christian. While I hadn’t written beyond the introduction post, the focus moving forward is to expand on this. Some of the content will be crossed with He Brews Faith as well, along with other mediums as appropriate. But ultimately I would like to have a collective resource for anyone who wants to explore the topic to have a place to go.

Website

During this time I had planned on revamping the website. While not going into the technical details, ultimately that was not achieved. It’s still possible to either make it happen by end of the year or so, it’s also not something I’m going to stress about. The important thing really isn’t whether the website is flashy or not, it’s about Christ and spreading His message. At this point I’ve accepted it will happen, but there is no definite time table.

Social Media

While this ministry does have a Facebook page and Twitter profile, both have been inactive for a while. My personal account on Facebook was deleted earlier this year for intentional reasons, while I haven’t been active on Twitter for just as long. They will stay around and I will try to keep them active moving into 2022, but as a whole social media isn’t my focus as much as building personal relationships will be. As an introvert it will take much energy and spiritual guidance to stop being comfortable, and I would rather focus the energy I can on furthering God’s Kingdom whether that’s via online or offline.

2022 Word of the Year

Every year I seek a way to improve. The first year I did this (2019) I looked for being more patient. 2020 was to reduce anxiety and 2021 was being joyous in the moment.

2022 for both personal and ministry will be “Jesus First”. Commitment, prayer, praise, glorification all focused around Christ regardless of the matter. I have come a long way since the beginning of my walk to bring Jesus to the center of my life, but like most Christians I tend to still containerize my faith at times. 2022 will be the year moving forward I not only carry that cross, but hang from it and be set free by Christ’s blood.