Are You Busy
Lazy? Not me. I’m busy. Up early, up late. My schedule is filled from beginning to end. I love what I do and I love getting stuff done. I attack a daily to-do list with the same intensity I play basketball. Me lazy? I don’t think so!
Or at least I didn’t think so. That is, until I read about the difference between busyness and fruitfulness, and realized just how often my busyness was an expression of laziness, not diligence.
I forget now who first brought these points to my attention. But the realization that I could be simultaneously busy and lazy, that I could be a hectic sluggard, that my busyness was no immunity from laziness, became a life-altering and work-altering insight. What I learned is that:
- Busyness does not mean I am diligent
- Busyness does not mean I am faithful
- Busyness does not mean I am fruitful
Recognizing the sin of procrastination, and broadening the definition to include busyness, has made a significant alteration in my life. The sluggard can be busy—busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knocking out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.
When considering our schedules, we have endless options. But there are a few clear priorities and projects, derived from my God-assigned roles, that should occupy the majority of my time during a given week. And there are a thousand tasks of secondary importance that tempt us to devote a disproportionate amount of time to completing an endless to-do list. And if we are lazy, we will neglect the important for the urgent.
Our Savior understood priorities. Although his public ministry was shorter than one presidential term, within that time he completed all the works give to him by the Father.
The Father evidently called him to heal a limited number of people from disease, raise a limited number of bodies from the dead, and preach a limited number of sermons. As Jesus stared into the cup of God’s wrath, he looked back on his life work as complete because he understood the calling of the Father. He was not called to heal everyone, raise everyone, preach copious sermons, or write volumes of books.
While we must always be extra careful when comparing our responsibilities with Christ’s messianic priorities, in the incarnation he entered into the limitations of human life on this earth.
So join me over the next few days as we discover the root and nature of laziness, so that we might devote ourselves to biblical priorities and join our Savior in one day praying to the Father, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4, ESV).
Posted by C.J. Mahaney
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A Singular Mission Field
Margaret Feinberg
Single people are “the most unchurched population in America and therefore one of the greatest mission fields in the world,” says Rich Hurst, director of strategic adult ministry resources for Cook Communications and a 20-year veteran of singles ministry.
Hurst spoke to CT while hosting Cook’s ninth annual Single Adult Ministry (SAM) convention in March. Nearly 700 men and women traveled to Denver for the event, giving a glimpse into the current state of singles ministries in the United States.
Single people are one of the fastest-growing groups in America, Hurst says. A Rutgers University National Marriage Project report found that the nation’s marriage rate has dropped by 43 percent in the last 40 years. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that single adults and single parents continue to be the fastest-growing household types in America. Since 1980 single mothers have increased 42 percent, single fathers have increased 99 percent, and people living alone have increased 36 percent compared to married-couple households, which only increased 9 percent during the same period.
With such growth and diversity in the singles population, churches are finding that they have to be strategic.
“Single adult ministry is becoming more specific,” said Angela Hamm, singles minister at First Baptist Church of Lewisville, Texas. “The groups are becoming more broad—Gen Xers, single parents, elderly—and you have to break it down more to meet needs.”
Ministry to single people in their 20s must be different from ministry to single people in their 50s, she added: “The only thing they have in common is their singleness.”
To address the varying needs of singles in the church, the SAM conference offers more than 80 workshops and 15 special seminars. Hurst estimates that 80 percent of the teaching focuses on the practical aspects of ministry. Indeed, workshop titles like “Starting a Single Adult Ministry,” “Young Adult Children of Divorce,” and “Meeting Real Financial Needs with Real Answers” dominated the program in Denver.
Most leaders agree that involving single Christians in all aspects of church life is essential to a successful ministry, but not everyone at SAM placed the whole burden on the church.
“It’s also up to the singles to take the initiative to plant themselves,” said Terry Thompson, a lay leader at Capital Christian Center in Sacramento, California. “The church is looking for workers. Most of the time it doesn’t care if you’re single.”
Though encouraged by the church’s increased sensitivity to singles issues, Rich Hurst is not yet ready to declare victory. Asked why he continues in singles ministry after two decades, his eyes moistened.
“It has been painful to watch the church ignore this,” he said. “I’ve been in churches where single adults are treated like second-class citizens. I’ve watched as the church goes to do something with the new generation while single moms beg for help and the divorced are thrown out of the church. For me, it’s been the Scripture, ‘If you do this unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.'”
Margaret Feinberg is a writer based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
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Heritage and Destiny 