Godward Toil

Accountability partner for Godward Toil?

The Bible encourages Christians to confess, pray, and encourage one another.  Every wise brother or spiritual mentor I have known has always emphasized the importance of spiritual accountability.  Proverbs 27:17 puts it this way, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."   For me, accountability is a concept that is inextricably bound up in my experience as a Christian--I don't think I even really heard people talk in terms of "accountability" or "accountability partners" until I started to hang out with Christian believers in my mid-twenties.

If we believe that stewarding time and energy wisely is important, should we pursue accountability in our personal productivity as well?   Matt Cornell has a detailed and helpful post on a two-week experiment in which he incorporated daily accountability into his quest for a productive work day.   Warning:  Matt's post definitely falls into the category of "advanced productivity."  If you're just starting to think about getting an inbox or filing your papers, this post may not be the best starting place.   Nevertheless, accountability might be an important starting point for anyone.  If you want to be more fruitful and and less wasteful for God, why not mention that to a friend and ask him or her to pray for you?

Four books in four weeks? Reflections on Piper Productivity

John Piper is just back from a four-week writing leave, during which he wrote four books.  "It was more productive than I thought it would be," he said.   Yes, I'll say.  Praise the Lord.

What can we learn from this about biblical productivity?

1.  We must avoid comparisons or exalt one person over another because of his visible productivity.  God has given all of us different functions in the church, different gifts, and different measures of faith.   We are not all supposed to be productive in the way:

 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;  if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8)

So we have to fight the temptation to look at ourselves when we hear about some else's fruitfulness.  I'm sad to say that my fallen heart went first in that direction..."How does he do that?  I'll never be that productive."   That kind of self-focus is wicked pride. 

2.  That said, we can and should pray to be as fruitful in our gifts and ministries as John Piper is in his.   May God be pleased to give me the ability and grace to do much in and through me--show me my equivalent of four book in four weeks and be my hands as I do it!

3.  Our life, work, and ministry experience should make us more productive with age.  Piper can write more books per week now than he could 30 years ago because he has preached 30 years worth of sermons, and lived 30 years worth of life with the Lord.   He did not sit down and come up with four books ex nihilo.  He wrote from sermon manuscripts and notes, which he had prepared and prayed over before.  God has given him a ministry that builds grace upon grace, and blesses more people as it goes.  The corresponding questions I can ask myself are, "Am I becoming more fruitful over time?"  "Am I leveraging the experiences and resources God has given me in the past toward greater Kingdom productivity in the present and future?"
4. I want to have the kind of discipline that can take advantage of windows of opportunity.  What would happen if I had a four-week unscheduled leave?  Would I know what to do with it?  Thanks be to God, I feel more equipped than I was a few years ago, but I still fear that I would waste valuable time.   This question is more than theoretical for me right now because I am in the midst of a job transition that will give me more unscheduled time.  Pray that God will be pleased with how I use it.

I can't wait to read the books Piper wrote during his recent leave.  I have listened to many of the sermons that formed the backbone for the books, and I'm so grateful that Bethlehem chooses to give their pastor time to put all of those Bible-saturated messages on printed page to bless and inspire many more people.

Godward Toil at Journey Christian Church

For any readers who are in the Rochester area, I'll be giving a three-part seminar on Godward Toil at our church.  The seminar is titled, "Godward Toil:  Peace, purpose and productivity when there's too much to do."  The first session will introduce the series, and lay a biblical foundation for focusing on productivity.  The next two will lead participants to consider various approaches to task management and organization.

Dates:   9-10am on May 18, June 1, June 8  (church service follows at 10:15)
Location, directions, and other info about Journey Christian Church available on the website. 

The seminar is being hosted by the "Indie Link," a group that connects 20-somethings to the church, the Lord, and each other.   Thanks to leaders Tom, Lara, Erica, and Paul for inviting me to share what the Lord has on my heart about productivity.

eProductivity blog honors mothers, challenges fathers

eProductivity guru and brother-in-Christ, Eric Mack, posted a touching tribute to his wife, and a biblical challenge to fathers and husbands yesterday.   

A Heritage of Habits: GTD for the family

I desire to have children who are fruitful and focused for the Lord, and family that lives in a next-action mindset, ready to take whatever next steps in faith we are called to take.   

In that vein, I have been thinking a lot over the past two years about how to incorporate the GTD methodology and other principles of productivity in our family's life, and how to instill these practices in our children from a very early age.   I mindmapped a bunch of ideas about this a couple of years ago, including how to leverage knowledge of child development to instill next-action thinking in kids.    Here is an example (.pdf) of one such map (note: it's pretty busy, so you'll need to zoom in to read small font in some parts).  I have others that I hope to share as I blog more about this.   

I was inspired to re-look at these old maps by a terrific post by Micheal Sliwinski that I read today at GTD Times.  The article offers good, concrete advice for families based on Michael's experiences implementing GTD at home.   I recommend checking it out if you're thinking about how to do this with your family.    From what I can tell, Michael Sliwinski will be contributing regularly about this topic, so I'm eager to learn more from his experiences.

The inspiration to revisit my maps and ideas about GTD in the family comes at a good time.   First, I am preparing to teach a three-part seminar in Sunday School at our church.   This seminar will build on the pilot seminar I presented a year ago to three couples from our church.   The presentation this month will have many more participants, God willing; and I suspect those who attend will be at various points in the life cycle.   I know that family life and child rearing is important to this group, so I need to refocus myself on these ideas in order to be as helpful and relevant as I can be.   

Second, it's a good time for this to resurface because our family is preparing to move to new home in June.  So, we're in major planning and set-up mode.   We're doing lots of things to try to build GTD into our new living space.   For example, we've dedicated what was the dining room in the house to be a "family office," with the idea of having a dedicated productivity hub for the kids.   I'm also building a home office where I'll have my own hub.   It's an exciting time to think through how we want to order our lives and our children's habits.

With a move and a job change coming in the next two months, I doubt I'll blog any more than my usual 2-3 posts per month.   But I'm eager to use some of these opportunities to gather and pray through my developing ideas about GTD for God's family.