In order to "hit the reset button" in a particular area of my life, one thing I may need to reset first is my mindset. My actions are often dictated by my thoughts, so one of the reasons I may have a relationship that's unhealthy or I might be emotionally unhealthy or spiritually unhealthy is because I'm mentally unhealthy. But can it really make that big a difference in my life get a new start with how I think about things? And what does that look like? How do I go about resetting my mindset?

Whether it's a laptop, an electrical device, or a major appliance, there are a lot of things we use on a regular basis that come with a "reset" button - a button to push when something isn't working the way it's supposed to or isn't working at all. There are many of us who would love to have a reset button to push when something in our personal lives isn't working the way it's supposed to - maybe our job or our marriage or even our own faith. We're starting off the new year at Flagstone by discovering two things together: 1) Is there some part of my life that isn't functioning properly right now? 2) How do I hit the "reset" button and get a new start with this piece of my life that's just not working?

Whether it's a laptop, an electrical device, or a major appliance, there are a lot of things we use on a regular basis that come with a "reset" button - a button to push when something isn't working the way it's supposed to or isn't working at all. There are many of us who would love to have a reset button to push when something in our personal lives isn't working the way it's supposed to - maybe our job or our marriage or even our own faith. We're starting off the new year at Flagstone by discovering two things together: 1) Is there some part of my life that isn't functioning properly right now? 2) How do I hit the "reset" button and get a new start with this piece of my life that's just not working?

The Christmas season is coming to an end. Decorations are coming down and being put away. Most of us will spend the next several days boxing up our Christmas stuff, and we won't pay much attention to it for another year. But some of us will be tempted to do that with our connection with Jesus as well. Now that Christmas is over, we'll stop focusing on Him and we'll stop allowing His presence to make a difference in our lives. What does it look like when I start to put Jesus in "storage," and how do I keep from "boxing up" my connection to Him?

So often we talk about faith in God - choosing to believe His word, choosing to believe in Him, choosing to believe that He is active in this world. But there's something significant in the story of the birth of Jesus that shows God actually believes in us! He believes that we can do some pretty awesome things, and He gives us this ability to accomplish His purposes in our lives. But how do I know that He believes in me? And how do I get better at believing that He believes in me?

One of the words we hear often around Christmas time is the word "hope." We hope to get good presents. We hope to see certain family members at Christmas. We hope our Christmas recipes turn out okay. Taking this a step further, if we believe in the story of the birth of Jesus, we discover that there are promises from our God that we can put our hope in. And yet, there are those that try to convince us that hope is a waste of time and can even be hurtful, especially when we don't receive what it was we were hoping for. So which is it? Should I choose to buy into the concept that I can expect blessings from God, even if they haven't happened yet? Or would it be better to let go of hope and just accept the mindset that there is nothing to truly hope for in this life?

The newborn Baby Jesus being placed in a feeding trough in a stable isn't just about a miraculous birth or humble beginnings. It's about God choosing to actually enter our world, to enter our lives, to engage with us and connect with us in an extremely personal way. Do I really believe that an all-powerful deity really wants to be that close to me? And even if I choose to believe that to be true, what (if anything) does that change about my reality, about my perspective of this world and my place in it?

We're usually encouraged to believe in a lot of things during Christmas time - flying reindeer, a rotund man sliding down a chimney, a locomotive that runs down Main Street. But there's one story that we focus on at this time of year that will absolutely change our lives if we choose to believe it - the story of a baby born in a barn and laid in a feeding trough. The challenge for all of mankind is not only to believe the story about this baby's birth, but to believe that the reason this baby was born was to give all of us a brand new life. Do I really believe the story of the birth of Jesus? Can faith in that story really change my relationships, my attitude, my future?

In the gospels, Jesus continually offers a level of grace that blows the water off of cultural expectations. It's a grace that's offered to all peoples regardless of the amount of sin in our lives and should radically change the way we view God and each other. We bring nothing to the table except for debt, and Jesus deals our grace endlessly and boundlessly and THAT is something worth sharing and emulating. Welcome to the Table of Extravagant Grace.

"Grateful" - what does that word mean? It's similar to being thankful or being content, but there's more to it than that. Being grateful goes beyond just saying "thank you" to someone who does something nice for me or being satisfied with what I have. When I am grateful, I am so thankful for something that someone has done for me that it moves me to action. I actively thank that person and probably try to do something for them in return. I "pay it forward" and try to do something kind for someone else because of what I experienced myself. And this is what we're going to focus on leading up to our nation's Thanksgiving holiday - being grateful. We're going to remind ourselves of what we have to be thankful for, and we're going to challenge ourselves to allow our gratitude to move us to action.