I’ve been examining 2024 and the year’s accomplishments for the last couple of weeks. Also, a part of this review has been questions about what I missed, what could have been done better, what worked, what didn’t, and what the plans are for 2025. A great many individuals and organizations of all kinds do this. So, I’m not unique in this. This doesn’t deter me. This is one of my strengths at this age. I also review questions like who I am now, God’s purpose for having me here, and where I am going. These are more of “us” questions than just “me” questions. My partner in this journey is Tanya Gregory Potter. We’ve been doing this journey together for a full 50 years and now starting our 51st year.
I thought of a term I use to teach my students studying film. It was a visual effect and a stylistic storytelling effect. It’s known as Pulling focus.
My curiosity led me to a Google search on ‘Pulling focus,’ a filmmaking technique that involves changing the focus distance of a camera lens to keep a subject in focus as it moves or the camera moves. This new knowledge, also known as rack focusing, added a layer of understanding to my teaching and personal growth.
The 1st Assistant Camera (AC), the focus puller, pulls focus on a film set. This is a challenging job that requires a variety of skills, including:
- Estimating distances accurately by sight
- Understanding how lens focus, iris, and zoom rings work
- Anticipating the movements of the camera operator and the subject
The effect can be subtle, obvious, and slow or rapid. For example, a focus puller might change the focus from a close-up face to a more distant one, blurring the closer one.
Pull our focus back to one year ago. I started last year with a post by Nate Johnston. Several of his “words” are in my looking forward to 2025 notes. I will lean on those and a post by Dr. Leon van Rooyen. These men give me a “jump start” in my thinking. I’m adding Greg Laurie, Richard Exley, Graham Cooke, Kris Vallotton, and Lance Wallnau.
I presented a reading plan for 2024. First, I want to make a confession: I did not read as much this year as I set out. I had a stack of books to read. I read “at them,” not read them. Oh, yes, I read. And I read some books all the way through. But I was disconnected in one way or another for much of the year. I spent an undue amount of time on social media. Facebook, email, Telegram, LinkedIn, etc. One area that I read every day was Amir Tsarfati’s posts on Telegram about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis, and Assad in Syria. I kept up to a much smaller degree with Ukraine and Russia. However, taking the place of number one was following the political turmoil of 2024, leading to the election of Donald J. Trump to become our 47th president on January 20th. My spirit labored over this event in our nation’s life and its effect upon the world.
Out of my more extensive work, Climbing Mount Everest to Accomplish Your Spiritual Goals, I pulled out the individual goals. These are Salvation, Baptism and Holy Communion, Holy Spirit, and Go Make Disciples! Each of these goals has been a significant part of my spiritual journey, and what I’ve learned are valuable lessons from each of them. That become my desire to share them in book form. I still have two goals to put into book form. That is on the drawing board for 2025. I finished the year by writing another book, Words of Life: Transformation through The Spoken Word.
A mission I’ve carried with me for over 25 years was a ministry school. The concept that caught my attention while we still lived in Abilene, Texas, and that I carried with me when we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, was introduced to me by Louie and Rita Self. They used the curriculum in Kenya to raise over 500 disciples. That concept of “making disciples” rather than just another Bible study was a seed that continued to grow in my mind and spirit. Finally, we launched our first School of Ministry in Albuquerque at Church Alive. Dr. Leon van Rooyen developed the curriculum, which is now in over 4,000 schools worldwide.
In January 2024, we started our second School of Ministry under our ministry name, Eagles Rest School of Ministry, at Clawson Church in Pollok, Texas. We used coaches over each of the manuals. They taught the material or found teachers for the chapters we covered. In the first semester, we covered four manuals. Then, another church picked up the vision in August and has their own program, the International Church of Nacogdoches School of Ministry. The state of Texas approved the schools for the prison system. The result of their approval will be in January 2025, a school in the Rufus Duncan Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. We have 25 men signed up for the school and a waiting list. Our founding president, Dr. Leon, made the trip to Lufkin. Fantastic time with his visit and the impact he made on a number of the churches and church leaders. More on that later.
A short story that I will not go into involved teaching John Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You DVD series. I taught this two times at the Diboll Unit. Out of the failed attempt to get that program into the Duncan Unit, the Chaplain asked me to preach. So, on a couple of Tuesday nights and one Sunday each month, Tanya and I present a message to 40 to 70 prisoners. This has become our church. Oh, yes, we have a home church. But these guys are “our church.” Tanya goes out several times weekly to teach with Jim and Linda Orcutt. I fill in as needed. Hopefully the Diboll Unit will soon be approved for a School of Ministry.
Looking ahead, the Long Focus for the upcoming year is set on the three schools, preaching and teaching at the prison, and more writing to be done. The anticipation for these endeavors is palpable, and I look forward to sharing the journey with you in the next reflection for 2025.
Spiritual Wanderings 