Set Personal Goals for the New Service Year
1 Are you happy with your spiritual achievements? It is good to keep moving ahead spiritually, but this requires effort. Setting goals for ourselves and for our families helps. A goal is an end toward which effort is directed. To be pleasing to Jehovah, our goals must be in harmony with his will. Therefore, we make Jehovah’s thinking our own and pursue theocratic goals, just as Jesus did. (John 17:4) We will thus find much joy and satisfaction in our life of service to Jehovah.—John 15:10, 11.
2 What goals have you been able to achieve in promoting Kingdom interests during the past service year? The fact that many reached the goals they had set for themselves can be seen in the number of those who were baptized. Also, tens of thousands enrolled as auxiliary and regular pioneers. Quite a number arranged to serve where the need is greater. Some brothers reached a personal goal when they were invited to Gilead, to Bethel, or to the Ministerial Training School.
GOALS YOU MIGHT CONSIDER
3 Are there appropriate goals that might be attainable for you? In order for new ones to make good spiritual progress, being regular in meeting attendance and joining the Theocratic Ministry School would be fine goals. If you have not been commenting regularly at the meetings, why not make that a goal? Others can benefit from your study and research, and your own grasp of the truth will be strengthened.—Heb. 10:24, 25.
4 Have you qualified to begin sharing in the field ministry? Are you doing so regularly? Are you reading the new publications as they come out, in order to keep up with the fine instruction from the faithful slave? If you have already achieved those goals, then would not dedication and baptism be proper goals for you to consider?
5 Are you conducting a Bible study? Have you prayed for help in getting one started? Have you diligently followed up on return visits, offering to study with the interested people you meet? If someone you study with is qualified to share in the field service, are you training him in the ministry?
6 Have you set a goal of hours for each month? Or have you tried the auxiliary pioneer service? Perhaps you are even in a position to start service as a regular pioneer, sharing the good news with others 90 hours each month. In time, you may have the joy of receiving the benefits of the special training provided in the Pioneer Service School. Brothers should be reaching out for the privilege of serving as ministerial servants and elders.—1 Tim. 3:1.
7 The personal goals that we set for ourselves should bring us closer to Jehovah and allow us to share more fully in doing his will. Paul said he was “forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead.” He encouraged us to have a positive mental attitude about theocratic pursuits so that “to what extent we have made progress,” we would “go on walking orderly in this same routine.”—Phil. 3:13, 16.