Godward Toil

Christ-exalting friendships: A parent's role (Family Miniconference)

Readers of this blog may be interested in a mini-conference I'm involved in organizing. If you're in the  Rochester area, consider joining us:

On Saturday, March 26 Journey Christian Church will hold a mini-conference for parents, grandparents, and others in the body the Christ. The conference is titled, "Christ-exalting Friendships: A Parent's Role."  The conference will kick off with a delicious breakfast followed by teaching from Bible about godly friendship and testimonies from three families in our body with different perspectives and experiences in guiding children and youth in their friendships.

The conference was motivated by questions many parents are asking:

• How do parents begin to train their children to make wise decisions in choosing the people that they spend time with?
• How do we find the balance between loving non-Christian friends, and being subjected to too much ungodly behavior?
• How can parents respond when their kids accuse them of "judging" a friend whom the parents think could be a negative influence?
• How should we communicate with other parents of teens when we have different philosophies or ground rules?
• How do we teach our kids how to be a good friend to others, including peers who have special needs or are "hard" to be friends with?

Breakfast:  8:15-9:00 a.m.
Conference: 9:00-11:30 a.m.

To learn more about the conference, to register, and to request childcare, please follow this link to the registration webiste.

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.

What Biblical Productivity Is Not

There is a terrible danger when talking about "Biblical Productivity" that some might think "Biblical Productivity" promises material wealth or prosperity by following Jesus or the Bible.   The productivity I'm after is that which promotes God's glory.  I want to be as wise and effective as possible for Him, and for others; and I want other Christians to think with me about how best to steward our time and attention so that we can serve and enjoy him most.

I pray that this emphasis is evident when reading my posts.   But I was reminded by the video embedded below (discovered via Justin Taylor)  that wolves in sheep's clothing can twist the language of productivity and pervert the Bible and the Gospel into a message about material productivity and prosperity. 

Joshua Harris on time spent on Facebook

A post by Justin Taylor pointed me to this post by Josh Harris about why he canceled his Facebook account after one week.  There is a lot of good, renewed mind thinking in this post.   Decisions about how to spend the precious minutes God gives are essentially a stewardship decisions.  And I love how Josh goes even beyond this stewardship point to also note how Facebook pointed him toward himself more than he felt was right.  The post is worth a read, especially if you need some conviction about how you spend your time online.

My Godward Toil Story (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)
In my searches, I looked at lots of productivity systems, including the most common ones.  I eventually found my way to David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) work via the MindManager world. I had purchased Mindmanager a week earlier, and had barely begun to experiment with it. I don't remember the exact search string, but it doesn't take long to find GTD if you enter "Mindmanager" and almost any productivity-like term.  I started surfing blogs and blogrolls, and eventually understood enough about GTD to know that I wanted to know more.  It was a case example of the power of Web 2.0 social networking (though I had never heard that term at the time).

I borrowed the book from our wonderful town library.  As a Christian,I am wary of any kind of self-help book.  Most pop psychology or self-help books glorify the inner power of the human being.  They make much of people, and little (or nothing) of God.  They offer people the promise of change and happiness, if only they will believe in...themselves.  I understand and respect the earnestness and good intentions of authors in the genre (and, in a previous time looked for Answers in these and New Age spirituality books), but most are not compatible with a Biblical worldview.

So, I approached the book with skepticism and caution.  In fact, I was even a little embarrassed when I checked it out of the library.  And, indeed, I did find some of the hallmarks of humanistic self-help and the elevation of human potential (in the last couple of chapters of the book, in particular).  But I also found a methodology that was manifestly sound, and, in ways I didn't expect, adaptable to my worldview.

The bottom up approach of GTD is what makes it so compelling in this way.   The methodology can be applied as a discipline, without even needing to buy into "stress-free productivity" (the subtitle of the book) as a primary goal.  Rather, the methods can help a reader bring order to his life, such that he can more effectively discern and pursue the right ends (telos).

Nevertheless, the Biblical Christian does need to do some work to filter, alter, and morph GTD in order to bring it under God's authority and to make it consistent with a life of Godward orientation and childlike dependence in faith.   That is the work I aim to do in the seminar I'm developing and in this blog. 

To be continued in Part 3...

Re-thought, Re-named, and Re-launched

This blog has had some false starts.  I finally figured out why:  I was being perfectionist and prideful about the kind of content I would share on it.  I had the idea that I was going to post well-worked-out ideas about how to think about, embrace, and be fruitful in the work God has for us in life.  But I sat there not knowing what to post first, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed when I thought about this project.

Whenever I feel that way, it means I need to pray and think...to discern what God really calling me to,  and what is holding me back.   What I discovered is that a need a platform for working out those ideas, not a pulpit from which to preach them.  I need a blog more like what Merlin Mann of 43Folders described in a recent post:

"Remember that your blog is only incidentally a publishing system or a public website. At its heart, your blog represents the evolving expression of your most passionately held ideas. It’s a conversation you’re holding up with the world and with yourself — a place where you can watch your own thoughts take different shapes and occasionally surprise you with where they end up…”   

So, I have deleted some of my previous posts, and changed the blog subtitle from "Peace, purpose, and productivity" (which seemed to imply that I already arrived--the blogger's version of an overrealized eschatology) to "Pursuing productivity from God, for God, and with God" (which, I hope, implies that the blog is part of a pursuit in progress.)  I plan to use the blog as a way to pursue a passion God has given me to be more faithful in everyday tasks, more peaceful in adversity, and more trustworthy in my relationships and commitments.  May God bless this pursuit, this blog, and this weak Christian.