A Theology of Workflow: My Interview with Christianity Today

Here’s an interview that I did with Christianity Today’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey after my seminar at the Desiring God National Conference in October. The subject of the interview is how productivity and theology relate.

No related posts.

November 11, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments 

Comments

4 Responses to “A Theology of Workflow: My Interview with Christianity Today”

  1. Christopher Misiano on November 17th, 2010 12:49 pm

    great article Matt! I am very excited for your book. Do you have a response to some of the criticism found in the comments of the CT article (such as productivity not being a biblical theme)?

  2. Matt on November 22nd, 2010 9:25 am

    Yes–I show how productivity is a biblical theme in the message I gave at the DG conference (which wasn’t recorded, unfortunately, due to a technical error) and will discuss that in my book as well.

    In the main, the objection seems to come from a misunderstanding–namely, defining productivity primarily as efficiency and/or simply “getting a lot done.” That’s a concept of productivity I am trying to correct. I do think it is important and biblical to get a lot done, but more important than that is getting the right things done. So I define productivity as effectiveness, rather than in terms of efficiency or quantity. The “right things” are thus the things that God wants done, and they may be very relational rather than concrete much of the time or for certain people (though not always).

    I talked about that in the interview a bit, but most of it didn’t make the final cut when they cut things down to fit the space.

  3. Two Posts from Matt Perman worth reposting « Calling, Work, and Vocation on November 23rd, 2010 4:22 pm

    [...] Second is a post by Matt Perman about the Theology of Workflow. Super interesting talking about productivity and theology. Worth the read: http://www.whatsbestnext.com/2010/11/a-theology-of-workflow/ [...]

  4. Christopher Misiano on November 30th, 2010 12:47 pm

    Thanks Matt, this is a great response. I think the terminology is great- “right things”, productivity as effectiveness, etc…I’m looking forward to the book!

Leave a Reply