Staffers at the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were greeted Tuesday morning, January 2, with “Happy New Year” by Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the church worldwide, as he turned to a seasonally-related subject. Addressing the time-honored tradition of listing New Year’s resolutions during a morning devotional message, he said, “I would suggest that you bring faith and that you bring heart into the new year. You will discover that you need them both.”

Paulsen said that failure to fulfill such a list of good intentions “leaves the shorelines of every February and March strewn with the wreckage of well-intentioned but not well-enough motivated reasons” for the annual ritual.

Paulsen asked the simple annual review questions: “What have you decided to bring with you into the new year? Whom have you decided to be or to become, to do or not to do?

“As the year is still very young and the door is still open, would you allow me to make a couple of suggestions as to what you may wish to bring with you into the new year? They have to do with what becomes of you as a person,” added Paulsen. Although a theologian, Paulsen said that his suggestions were not presented from a theological perspective, but from a human posture.

“You need faith to survive as a believer,” Paulsen said. “You need heart to be an attractive human being. You need both to do well in the service you are called to in this church family. Do not just think of what you had in your hands last year and work with that. Think also of newness.” He recited how we should not fear for our future when we review how God has led us in the past, and added, “But that does not mean that we should walk backwards into the future.”

The year 2001 is God’s new gift to us, to be open to freshness and newness, to be creative, Paulsen encouraged the staff. “How are you and I going to be relevant to the multitudes who are so busy?” he asked.

“And you need heart. This gives you the ability to feel with another person. It is heart which gives your commitments depth and passion; which keeps you on fire for someone or something. Because you have heart you are able to heal. Because you have heart, people will want to stand next to you. Your heart gives you the ability to smile, even to be humorous,” said Paulsen.

“Therefore, as we begin a new year,” he concluded, “aim not just to be right. Aim also to be human.” []