Here is session 2 from the What’s Best Next workshop I did in April. In session one we looked at the goal of gospel-driven productivity. In this session we look at the guiding principles for accomplishing this goal. And then many more things.
(You can also watch this directly on Vimeo.)
(And, of course, here’s the book at Amazon if you don’t have it already.)
Back in April I did a Saturday morning workshop on What’s Best Next, hosted by Stonebrook Church in Ames, Iowa. Here is session one, where I talk about getting the foundations right for productivity. That means, above all, understanding the purpose of our productivity, which is to do good for others to the glory of God.
(You can also watch it right on Vimeo.)
This is a great poster on the vision of What’s Best Next by Phil Auxier and his team at Crestview Bible Church, where I’ll be speaking later this fall.
They capture the vision of the book and this site perfectly.
My interview on What’s Best Next with Stephen McGarvey, editorial director of Salem Web Network, has been posted over at Crosswalk.com.
Stephen asked great questions and the interview was a lot of fun! We talk about how this book is different from other productivity books on the market, why we need to start with God in our definition of productivity, the place of generosity in our productivity, and much more.
This is an absolutely incredible deal. Going on now.
(And, spread the word!)
In my interview today at The Gospel Coalition with Bethany Jenkins on What’s Best Next, I talk about why I wrote the book and how it ties in to productivity books like Getting Things Done and Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Workweek, as well as how it seeks to take books like John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life or David Platt’s Radical a step further.
This is something that is absolutely foundational to why I wrote the book and how I conceive of it, but which I haven’t talked about much in other interviews on the book.
Here’s an excerpt:
Why did you write this book?
[One of my chief reasons] is that I want to reshape the way we think about productivity altogether. Years ago I read Tim Ferriss’ very helpful book The 4-Hour Workweek. His book gives some of the best productivity tips of recent years, but he puts them toward the wrong purpose: minimizing the time you spend working so you can join the “new rich” and live however you want. (Its subtitle is: “Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich”.)
So I said to myself, “What if, instead of putting productivity within the context of joining the new rich, we put productivity within the context of fulfilling God’s vision for our lives?” That is a much more exciting thing, in my view, than joining the new rich and being able to do whatever you want. That’s why the first few sections of the book are about God’s vision for our lives and why we should care about productivity at all. I seek to show both what that vision is and that it is the most exciting and interesting way to live.
What do you mean by God’s vision for our lives?
God’s vision for our lives is that we glorify him by doing good for others radically, creatively, and abundantly. That’s simply the second greatest commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We love ourselves creatively and abundantly and, therefore, we are to love others creatively and abundantly as well. The energy and initiative that we put into advancing our own welfare we are to also put into advancing the welfare of others. We are to see our entire lives as avenues for doing good.
You don’t have to run to the hills or escape 9-5 to have a meaningful life. You can have the highest possible significance in your work right now — whatever you are doing — if you do it for the good of others and glory of God.
….
At the end of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done, I give a summary of the book in 500 words so that people can easily take away the core concept and a few key practices (and share them with others).
Here it is:
Gospel-Driven Productivity in a Nutshell
We need to look to God to define for us what productivity is, not simply the ambiguous concept of “what matters most.” For God is what matters most.
When we do this, we don’t enter a realm of spiritual weirdness, as we might fear. Good secular thinking remains relevant as a gift of God’s common grace. Neither do we enter a realm of over-spiritualization where the things we do every day don’t matter.
Instead, the things we do every day take on even greater significance because they are avenues through which we serve God and others. In fact, the gospel teaches us that the good of others is to be the main motive in all that we do and the chief criteria by which we determine “what’s best next.” This is not only right, but also the best way to be productive, as the best business thinkers are showing. More importantly, when we do this in God’s power and as an offering to him, he is glorified and shown to be great in the world.
In order to be most effective in this way in our current era of massive overload yet incredible opportunity, we need to do four things to stay on track and lead and manage our lives effectively:
The result of this is not only our own increased peace of mind and ability to get things done, but also the transformation of the world by the gospel because it is precisely in our everyday vocations that we take our faith into the world and the light of the gospel shines—both in what we say and in what we do (Matthew 5:16).
If You Only take 5 Productivity Practices Away from This Book
Learning and especially implementing productivity practices can be hard. It is easy to forget what we learned or forget how to apply it. One remedy is to keep coming back to this book (of course!). But to make this as simple as possible, if you can only take away 5 things from this book, they should be these:
I have two case lots of What’s Best Next that I’m selling at 50% off, which is $10 per book (plus shipping). There are 24 books in a case. This is a great way to get a set of books for the staff at your church, business, or non-profit, or just to give away.
You can purchase them through the interface I set up at Square Market, and I’ll get them sent right out.
I have an interview up at Ed Stetzer’s blog today about What’s Best Next, answering the question “How Do You Get the Right Things Done?”
Lots of time management books talk about the importance of values. But that’s not enough, because you can value the wrong things.
My answer — and the answer of the book — is that the ultimate way to get the right things done is to value what God values, and act in accordance with that. This leads us to the counterintuitive notion that love and generosity — not efficiency — are actually the ways to be most productive.
Shortly after What’s Best Next came out a few months ago, a commenter on another blog said I should call the productivity approach I outline in my book “Scripture-centered productivity” rather than “gospel-driven productivity.”
It’s a good question. Why isn’t it enough to just call it “biblical productivity”? Why do I have to call it “gospel-driven productivity?”
On Not Being Boring
The first answer is simple: The phrase “Scripture-centered productivity” sounds awkward and annoying! The term “biblical productivity” would be a bit better, but that phrase is still just plain boring.
This might seem superficial, but it’s not. God commands us to communicate in ways that are interesting (Colossians 4:6). The phrase “biblical productivity” is just plain boring in most contexts, and so I reject it on biblical grounds.
The Gospel is the Heart of the Scriptures
Someone might say to this “but why do you have to put the ‘gospel’ label on it? Isn’t it actually more accurate to just say ‘biblical’?” My answer is that it is not more accurate. The reason is that the gospel is at the heart of the Scriptures. Therefore, any view of productivity that is truly “Scripture-centered” must necessarily be gospel-centered. I want to draw that connection, because it is essential.
The Essence of Gospel-Driven Productivity
The chief implication the gospel has for our productivity is that the guiding principle in all the things we get done should be the good of others. Just as Jesus in the gospel put our needs ahead of his own, even to the point of dying on the cross, we are to see all that we do as an avenue for serving others — putting their needs ahead of ours, just as Jesus did for us. And we are to do this from acceptance with God on the basis of the gospel, not for acceptance with God.
That’s the heart of what it means to be “gospel-driven” and live a truly productive life. “Scripture-centered productivity” doesn’t capture that. “Gospel-Driven Productivity” does.
What it Really Means to be “Gospel-Driven”
Using the phrase “gospel-driven” also helps capture other thing — namely, that if you say “wait, the term ‘gospel-driven’ doesn’t communicate that to me at all,” then you are not understanding the gospel.
In other words, everyone who considers themselves gospel-centered needs to understand that you cannot claim that the gospel is the center of your life if you aren’t living your life first of all for the good of others rather than yourself.
This means if you are a “gospel-centered” leader, you lead for the welfare of your people first, not your own advantage, comfort, and advancement (Matthew 20:25-28). (This means getting rid of command and control, authoritarian leadership that sees people only as tools to get the job done, rather than as valuable people in the image of God to be treated with respect.)
If you are a gospel-centered business owner, you manage your business to make a real contribution to society, not simply make a profit.
And if you are gospel-driven in the way you get things done (as all Christians should be), then you make the good of others your motive in all you do, rather than just doing things to get to the bottom of your list or increase your own personal peace and affluence.
I see many who claim to be gospel-centered because they really like proclaiming the gospel, but who don’t allow the gospel to guide and shape their actions at work. They are sometimes just as selfish in the way they do things as the world is (often more so! a true irony). This is a terrible testimony and it does a lot of harm. It undermines the gospel and therefore is not gospel-centered in the slightest. We need to change this, and become truly gospel-driven in our deeds as well as words.
Is the Term “Gospel-Centered” Cliche?
It is certainly true that some have attached the term “gospel-centered” to their ideas without actually knowing what it means. When the term “gospel-centered” is used in a trite and superficial way, it is unfortunate.
But when you understand what gospel-centered really means, it is anything but trite or superficial. It is not the “flavor of the month” in Christianity, but rather at the very core of Christianity.
In Sum
Thus, from all this we can see why a phrase like “Scripture-centered productivity” actually doesn’t communicate my point. Certainly I am trying to say that we are to be guided by the Scriptures in how we think about productivity. But I’m trying to say more. My point is that since the gospel is at the heart of the Scriptures, when we think of the Scriptures we are to first think of the gospel. It is the gospel, not just the concept of Scripture in an abstract sense, that is to guide our productivity.
And to be guided by the gospel is to be guided by love, of which the gospel is the greatest demonstration in all the universe.