Godward Toil

Can a Christian do GTD and Col 2:8?

A dear brother emailed me this afternoon to alert me to an interview with Wayne Grudem by C.J. Mahaney.  Grudem is a theological giant of modern orthodox Christianity.  I have heard several Christian leaders (including Sally Michaels of Children Desiring God) say that Grudem's Systematic Theology is the most important book, outside the Bible, for anyone with a teaching ministry to own.

In the interview with Mahaney, Grudem says:   "As far as human advice and counsel, I have found the system described in Getting Things Done by David Allen to be very helpful—I am just now rereading that to try to get all of my “in box” items back under control again and listed in one place, and then processed. I should add that I find effective use of time to be a continual challenge and I keep making small modifications here and there."

I have mentioned before that I approached GTD with a fair amount of skepticism because of Allen's New Age background and aims.  I'm in the middle of reading his latest book, Making it all work and I remain on guard against the promise of "Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life" (as the full title offers).  The Bible is about victory in life and everything else!  And because it is, there is a part of me that wants to throw into the fire any other book that makes a similar claim.   I think that part of me is righteous and I want to keep that fierce rejection of claims that compete with the Bible's claims.   And, at the same time, I have found that, as a bottom-up approach (set of tools) for managing what God puts in my life, GTD has helped me serve my family, teach, fight sin, lead, pray, and respond to the Spirit in church more effectively.  I love and desire productivity for the Lord, and want to steward his time and tasks well.  The disciplines associated with GTD are not essential for me to do that, but they do help.

So it is comforting to hear that someone whose heart and mind I admire as much as I do Grudem's has come to similar conclusions.  I do think it takes an enlightened mind and a strong foundation of faith and theology to read David Allen and remain true to Paul's exhortation in Col 2:8, "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."  But it is possible.  And if the heart and mind conditions are right, GTD can be a powerful tool in the hand of a Christian.

The purest words ever spoken from a pulpit

The first 17 minutes of this sermon by John Piper put a stake in the ground for my life.  Pastor John recites scripture from the heart the way I want to, and want my children to.  Paul said to the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."   So I am within God's plan for the body of Christ when I desire to imitate this precious brother's Word-soaked life.   These 17 minutes are my vision of biblical productivity.  These words are tools for Godward toil.   If you do nothing else on the Internet this week, watch or listen to (don't just read) this sermon about Scripture memory.

D6 Ministry Urges Radical Family-Centeredness

Our pastor mentioned D6 ministry in a meeting earlier this week.  I thought I had heard of it, but when I went to explore the website, I realized I hadn't.  The ministry is founded on the biblical premise, found in Deut 6:5-9 and elsewhere, that parents have the primary responsibility for instructing their children in the ways of the Lord, and that ministry to children should be aligned accordingly.  That primary responsibility rests on parents from a theological perspective.  But the D6 ministry leads mostly with a practical argument:  that children will always be with their parents and families more than they will be in Sunday school or anywhere else, so that's where the emphasis will be.   It's a productivity argument for focusing on families.  They even have a T-shirt that emphasizes the 1:167 ratio of hours in Sunday school to hours elsewhere. 

The family-inclusive small group my wife and I are working on is precisely in this model.  And I think the D6 Ministry's radical commitment to family-centeredness can challenge and inspire all churches to think outside traditional models of children's programming.   Whether or not one dives in with the kits and materials of specific ministry, that is a helpful and biblical challenge for those who desire massively productive ministry to children.

Encouraging faithfulness to core disciplines

I've been considering this morning how to encourage faithfulness to the core disciplines of hearing from God through Bible reading and prayer.   This topic has come to mind for three reasons: 

1. I am always seeking strategies for defeating sloth and distraction in my flesh. 
2. My current focus on church ministry teams has me pleading with God for a team of brothers and sisters who are in the word and praying every day because (as I've discussed in my posts on Psalm 127), the house we build will either fall down or do no lasting good unless the Lord builds it.
3. I recently listened to John Piper's annual sermon exhorting his people to faithful and fruitful prayer.  It is always one of my favorites of the year (last year's blew me away).  This year Pastor John strongly emphasized building habits around prayer, including committing to a time and place.

I've heard the exhortation for having a time and place many times, and of course it is wise.  But I also sense it is incomplete for many people.   I needed to link my disciplines to other actions and habits in my life.  For me, the most helpful strategy has been the "no email before bible" resolution.  This strategy built Psalm 127 thinking into my day--I was essentially saying to myself, "Don't fool yourself into thinking that any work or personal correspondence that is not build upon your relationship with God will be any good to anyone."    I was also trying to defeat Satan's subtle tactics to get me off track with what is most important--"just take care of this one thing and get it off your mind so you can really focus on your Bible," the devil would prompt--which of course just got me off to the races, never to return to my plan for quiet time with my Lord.

I have not always been faithful to my resolution, but it has helped a lot.  I'm considering upping the ante on it by changing some usernames or passwords to include phrases like "IvereadmyBibleGod" somewhere in them (note to hackrs:  this is an example and it won't be in any of my passwords, which will be way more disguised:).   I've also thought about a yellow sticky over the keypad of my work and cell phone that says "Remove only after daily devotions" which would require me to take it off before the Lord prior to using.  After all, the whole reason he has blessed me with a phone is so that I can do my work or ministry for Him!   How silly is it for me to use a phone without seeking him for purity and purpose in all I do?   I'd love to find a way to disable my car with a prayer detector that wouldn't let it start until I had earnestly sought Him!

Now, I know these kinds of suggestions open one to charges of legalism, which is why I LOVED Piper's direct response to this criticism in the prayer sermon this year:

And meanwhile the devil is whispering all over this room: “The pastor is getting legalistic now. He’s starting to use guilt now. He’s getting out the law now.” To which I say, “To hell with the devil and all of his destructive lies. Be free!” Is it true that intentional, regular, disciplined, earnest, Christ-dependent, God-glorifying, joyful prayer is a duty? Do I go to pray with many of you on Tuesday at 6:30 a.m., and Wednesday at 5:45 p.m., and Friday at 6:30 a.m., and Saturday at 4:45 p.m., and Sunday at 8:15 a.m. out of duty? Is it a discipline?

You can call it that. It’s a duty the way it’s the duty of a scuba diver to put on his air tank before he goes underwater. It’s a duty the way pilots listen to air traffic controllers. It’s a duty the way soldiers in combat clean their rifles and load their guns. It’s a duty the way hungry people eat food. It’s a duty the way thirsty people drink water. It’s a duty the way a deaf man puts in his hearing aid. It’s a duty the way a diabetic takes his insulin. It’s a duty the way Pooh Bear looks for honey. It’s a duty the way pirates look for gold.

It goes without saying that just because I remove a yellow sticky from my phone, read my Bible pray, doesn't mean that my heart is with the Lord.  The habit doesn't make the heart, but not having the habit can destroy chances of developing the heart.  That is too big a risk for me.  I  fear wasting my life and time building houses, keeping watch, rising up early and going late to rest (Psalm 127:1-2) if the Lord is not in it.  I also fear for a church ministry team that would meet to talk, plan, and work without every person continually asking God for an renewed mind (Romans 12:2) and a pure heart (Psalm 51).  Join me in praying for faithfulness to core disciplines this year.

A lesson from a customer support experience from Pelotonics

As I mentioned in my last post, I am thinking a lot about ministry team productivity.   I want our children's ministry team to be massively productive for the Lord.  

We have a large team that is responsible for a large ministry.  One of the "tools for toil" I see as potentially helpful is a collaborative project management website.   I have tested several sites, and recently found one, Pelotonics, that I think will best match with the needs of our ministry team.  I have yet to roll it out to the team, so the proof will be in the putting, but my initial work with the site has given me a favorable impression.

That impression was strengthened today with a customer support experience that surprised and challenged me.  It was so good, and put such a stake in the ground for me in terms of productivity, that I have to share it here:   I completed a technical support form on the Pelotonics website with a question I couldn't find answered on the site's forums or wiki.  Within hours, I not only had an answer by email, but the company's founder, Troy Malone, recorded a video response to my question.  The response answered my question, and went on to offer additional useful information related to it--information I had not yet thought to ask for, but which will help me down the road.  I later discovered that Mr. Malone also streams live from his office during many points in his workday to engage with and support his product's consumers.

The reason to mention it here, other than that I was thankful and impressed, is that it presents a challenge to me to think outside of the expectable and strive to surpass it. This company has decided that customer support is central to their model.  Almost every company would say that.  But this company also decided to redefine what customer support means.   From a business standpoint, it will be interesting to see how this scales when Pelotonics grows, but from a ministry standpoint, it is relevant because whatever challenge our team faces, we should ask God to show us the best way to meet it, and open our minds for him to show us something different and more glorious to him than the status quo.  I think this is particularly relevant to ministry with children, whom many churches and parents have underestimated.   Scripture memory:  how about whole books of the Bible?   Lessons:  how about systematic theology?   Sing-a-longs:  how about five verses of the great hymns?   I think our church and many of the families in our congregation do think big about our children, but I always want to be open for God to show me something bigger--even to redefine what I think of as big.

Lessons about how great God is come from the strangest places, don't they?  Ustream??  It should not be surprising, since all of creation and history are a drama that is ultimately about Him and for Him:

For by him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. (Col 1:16)

Current focus for biblical productivity: Church teams and children

I'm part of a new leadership team that is starting at our church to support and strengthen our ministry to children.  My wife and I are also working to launch a family-inclusive small group that aims to equip ourselves and other families to have vibrant and productive God-focused lives together, including discovering and practicing the most fruitful ways to have family devotional time, family scripture memory, and generally live a Deuteronomy 6:7 life with our children.

So there are two topics about which I'm thinking a lot right now, and will likely blog about in the near future:

1. Church team productivity.   I deeply desire for our team to be fruitful for God in every sense.  Part of the spiritual call to leadership is to steward well the time and energy God has given team members.   We want our work to matter for the kingdom.  We want to be wise and skillful for God, leveraging any available tools and resources to accomplish the work He has given us.   And we want everyone on our team to be strengthened by their service.
2. Productive avenues of teaching and discipling children.  Our church has adopted a phrase to describe our mission: "To make more and better disciples."   How do we do that more and better as a family and as a church with our children?

I'm thankful that God has shown me and my family some of what he wants us to focus on in 2009. In pursuing these callings, part of my personal discipline needs to be discerning how much will be useful to share here.  The questions I have to ask myself before opening an editor to compose a blogpost remains the same:  1. Could posting this thought/observation/link help me or someone else be more fruitful in God's kingdom?  2.  Will posting distract or strengthen me from actually doing?  We'll see how often both of these answers are yes, but I feel energized by God's leading and the synergy I'm sensing in what he is calling me, my family, and my church to right now.