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Archives for May 2011

Seven Thoughts on Time Management from Doug Wilson

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Great thoughts by Doug Wilson.

Here are the seven points:

  1. The point is fruitfulness, not efficiency. [Comment: This point is especially excellent. Very often, the question for optimal efficiency backfires and is actually less efficient. It’s this way in management as well: seek effectiveness, and efficiency often follows. Seek efficiency, and you’ll probably lose both.]
  2. Build a fence around your life, and keep that fence tended.
  3. Perfectionism paralyzes.
  4. Fill in the corners.
  5. Plod.
  6. Take in more than you give out.
  7. Use and reuse.

Read the whole thing.

Church Productivity: Organizational Effectiveness and Not Personal Effectiveness

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This is a guest post by Loren Pinilis. Loren blogs on time stewardship at Life of a Steward.

For a long time, my desire has been to not waste my life. I wanted to do great things for God and to bring him as much glory as possible.

But I was going about it all wrong.

My thinking was refined by Dave Harvey’s Rescuing Ambition and by what Matt has said here on What’s Best Next.

I had an individualistic view of good works. Productivity was all about what I personally could contribute and accomplish. I looked for ways to use my strengths and to follow the callings and burdens that God had given me.

But I’ve realized the New Testament model for effectiveness is strikingly different. Instead, we see God working through his church. We see the passion of the apostles to build up this corporate body. We see God creating, refining, and growing local congregations of believers — and expressing his love to the nations through them.

This should radically change our view of productivity. We shift from a model that focuses on personal effectiveness to one that centers on organizational effectiveness. The most important thing is the team record, not the stats of the players.

This organizational productivity is not about finding fulfillment in our ministry. It’s not about making sure our gifts are utilized to the fullest. It’s about what’s best for the church.

There is a relationship between personal effectiveness and organizational effectiveness. God did, after all, give us strengths and gifts that he intends for us to steward well. But when spiritual gifts are discussed in the Bible, it’s in the context of the church. These gifts are given so that we join with others who have complementary strengths – and together we build up the church, serve the needs of others, and fulfill the Great Commission.

The danger, however, is when the church becomes merely a vehicle for us to pursue our personal ministry goals. In the desire to maximize our own individual productivity, we end up devaluing the local church. Instead of the church being a functioning body, it becomes some Frankenstein’s monster of individual parts sewn together.

I like the way Dave Harvey puts it: “The church shouldn’t merely accommodate our ministry; it should help define it according to the present needs of the church. This means if you have a burden for adult education but the church needs someone to teach kids, then grab the milk and cookies and get your lessons ready.”

“Having a heart” for a particular area of ministry is a signpost pointing you to an area where you may be the most productive. Passions are often God’s way of showing you how you can contribute to the greatest organizational effectiveness of the church.

But the performance of the body is the final measure of success — not our fulfillment. Not our individual accomplishments.

If the pursuit of our lives is to bring God glory, let’s make sure we’re doing it in a way that honors him and his body. Let’s do what will help the church the most — asking first “what needs to be done,” rather than simply “what would I like to do.”

Tim Keller on the Passion of An Entrepreneur

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Here is a short, good video of Tim Keller speaking on passion and entrepreneurship. Interestingly, he points out the the last of the seven deadly sins — sloth — doesn’t refer to laziness but rather passionless.

In other words, living a life without passion was traditionally considered to be one of the seven deadly sins.

(Sorry for not embedding the video — technical difficulties; the above link will take you right to it, though.)

A Model for Helping Those in Great Need

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Fantastic. Here is the mission, vision, and philosophy of ministry for a mercy ministry that just started at my church:

Mission

The seventeen-mile rugged descending road from Jerusalem to Jericho is the setting for the Good Samaritan to display mercy and restoration to a beat-up man and robbed stranger. Jesus tells us to go and do likewise. Luke 10:35-35

It is not enough to bandage the wounds of the beaten up man. It is necessary to give him a donkey ride to the inn in Jericho so that he can be fully restored.

“From crisis to Christ-centered restoration.”

Vision

To meet the basic needs of the hungry, homeless, and unemployed while teaching life skills that will lead them to be community minded and part of a Christ-centered church.

Philosophy of Ministry

It is a privilege and honor, not a sacrifice, to serve the low income/no income persons in a Christ-like way.

Ministry Programs

We will be there for a person’s crisis. But, far beyond just crisis food and financial response, we want people to be restored. This will happen through the following development programs . . .

Here are two reasons why I’m so enthusiastic about this. First, it affirms the need to not only meet immediate needs, but also to teach life skills and restore people so they can become self-sustaining. Second, though this is not easy, they see this as a privilege, not a sacrifice.

I commend this as an example of a mercy ministry founded in good thinking (and good theology) regarding relief and restoration for those in great need.

Not to Seek Your Own, In a Selfish Sense, Is the Best Way of Seeking Your Own in a Better Sense

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I love these words from Jonathan Edwards (in Charity And Its Fruits):

If you are selfish, and make yourself and your own private interests your idol, God will leave you to yourself, and let you promote your own interests as well as you can.

But if you do not selfishly seek your own, but do seek the things that are Jesus Christ’s, and the things of your fellow human beings, then God will make your interest and happiness his own charge, and he is infinitely more able to provide for and promote it than you are. The resources of the universe move at his bidding, and he can easily command them all to subserve your welfare.

So that, not to seek your own, in the selfish sense, is the best way of seeking your own in a better sense. It is the directest course you can take to secure your highest happiness.

I would say that this might be the second most important thing I have ever read.

The Secret of Effectiveness

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It’s really simple to understand on one level; but on another level, it’s very hard to truly grasp and put in to practice. Here it is, stated very well by Rick Warren in The Purpose-Driven Church:

The secret of effectiveness is to know what really counts, then do what really counts, and not worry about all the rest.

This makes sense if you think about it. Effectiveness means doing the right things. It doesn’t mean just getting things done, but getting the right things done.

If you are going to be effective, then, you need to know what the most important things are. But that’s not enough, because if you know what is most important but don’t actually do those things, it won’t help you. so you not only need to know what really counts, you have to actually do what counts.

But in seeking to do this, there are obstacles. There is a villain, so to speak: all the other things (many of which are good in themselves) which are outside of our core purpose and threaten to distract us from it by splintering our efforts and pulling us in too many directions. So in order to put first things first, you also need to know how not to worry about other things.

So: Know what counts, put it first, and know how to keep yourself from being distracted by everything else.

"No Man Has a Right to be Idle"

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William Wilberforce:

No man has a right to be idle. Where is it that in such a world as this, that health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?

In other words, be constantly on the lookout for good that you can do. Use the time and energy that God has given you not to make your own life easier or more restful primarily, but rather to meet the needs of others, both nearby and on a global scale.

Here are some easy things you can do right now, in just a few minutes:

  • Empower an entrepreneur in the developing world with a $25 loan through Kiva.
  • Help bring rescue and restoration to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression through a $250 gift to International Justice Mission.
  • Give one person the gift of clean, safe water through a gift of $20 to Charity:Water
  • Contribute to theological famine relief by helping supply pastors in the developing world with resources through a gift of $100 to Desiring God.

This is what true productivity is: Being creative and thoughtful in finding ways to use our time and skills to become fruitful in good works.

Accidental Post

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Lots of people have been discussing how Christians should think of Osama Bin Laden’s death. If you are subscribed in a reader, you might have received a post I was starting to pull together on that — but which was unfinished and just a collection of notes at that point.

John Piper has some helpful things to say on the larger issue that this is a sub-set of, and I had started pulling them together for a possible post. After copying in a couple of verses and a John Piper quote (but not yet the main one), I accidentally hit “post” instead of “save” (I’m doing this on an iPad [long story] and hit the wrong button).

Anyway, the post was very incomplete. It had one quote, but not the most helpful one. Sorry for the mix-up!

Here is the link to Piper’s sermon where he addresses the larger issue involved here: “The Pleasure of God in All That He Does.”

And here’s the very helpful section I was intending to quote:

I have commended a solution to you before and I will commend it again: namely, that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God (Ezekiel 33:11). God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. Instead, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the vindication of truth and goodness and of his own honor and glory.

… those who have rebelled against the Lord and moved beyond repentance will not be able to gloat that they have made the Almighty miserable. Quite the contrary. Moses says that when they are judged, they will unwittingly give an opportunity for God to rejoice in the demonstration of his justice and his power and the infinite worth of his glory (Deut 28:63).