• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

Just Listening

Posted on October 20, 2010 by wtdavid

A few quotes from the day’s sessions to consider and reflect upon:

“”For the sake of Christ, we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.”  If you feel a resistance to the second half of this statement, then you have a defective view of hell.  If you feel a resistance to the first half of this statement, then you have a defective heart.”  John Piper

“I have sometimes called this “double listening”.  Listening to the voice of God in Scripture, and listening to the voices of the modern world, with all their cries of anger, pain and despair.”  Fritz Kling quoting John Stott

“”You didn’t give the Bible to the man with the gun back there, watching us while he leaned on the wall?” his wife asked.  “No, I prayed about it,” said the husband, “and it didn’t feel right.”  Finally though, the husband turned the car around and went back to give the man a Bible.  When he handed it to the man, he took it, and said, “Three days ago I had a dream where I was told to come here and wait for someone to give me the book of life.”  This man gave his life to Christ after reading this Bible, and was martyred five years later.” Michael Ramsden, relating a story told to him by a friend from the Middle East.

Filed under: Cape Town 2010, Reflection | 1 Comment »

Feedback needed

Posted on September 2, 2010 by wtdavid

Somehow that matrix didn’t copy real well to Tuesday’s post, so I’ve re-printed it below in a better format.

Comments by both Ed and David D got me thinking about another matrix which might help us in “re-ordering” our priorities.  This matrix is found in James Lawrence’s work, Growing Leaders, and underlines, for one, the need for feedback from others.

“Feedback,” as Lawrence writes, “helps open up the blind self.  In every context, inviting feedback from those who know us, love us and want the best for us helps combat delusion and develop character, but we’ll often need to invite it.”  Such feedback would be valuable in honestly assessing how to better “use” or prioritize our time.

Filed under: Community, Reflection | 5 Comments »

Finding the “time”

Posted on August 31, 2010 by wtdavid

It’s pretty easy to say that we need to take more time to think and reflect.  The struggle, however, is to find the “time” in our rather hectic schedules. If it’s more about “giving time” than the “amount of time”, then we are really asking the question of priorities. 

One author diagrammed our “time” priority situation as the following:

  Urgent Not Urgent
Important I

Activities:

Crises

Pressing problems

Deadline-driven projects

 II

Activities:

Relationship building

Recognizing  new opportunities

Planning
Not Important III

Activities:

Interruptions, some calls

Some e-mail, some meetings

Pressing matters

 IV

Activities:

Trivia, busy work

Some e-mail, some calls

Time wasters

 

Two key factors that drive our time priorities are “urgent” and “important”. Something that is urgent requires attention now.  Something that is important contributes to our mission, our values, our objectives.  Most people (myself included) do not work in quadrant II thinking, and yet it is by taking time to engage in quadrant II thinking that we actually reflect more deeply about questions/issues that we know we should take time to consider (important).  Yet, we don’t because those questions/issues do not appear to need immediate attention (urgent).

The question we might want to ask is: “What one thing could I do in my personal and ministry life that, if I did it on a regular basis, would make a significant difference in my life and ministry?”  This reflection question is not “urgent”, but it is “important”, and would ultimately impact who I am and what I do.  We just need to figure out how to “give time” to this kind of thinking.

Filed under: Reflection | 6 Comments »

Am I Really Thinking?

Posted on August 30, 2010 by wtdavid

We’ve asked the question in some recent posts: “Am I really listening?”  However, I think it’s also worth asking the question about our capacity to really think, and to think theologically about a host of issues.

It’s a standard line to say that things move at a much faster pace these days. And yet it is true.  We used to get upset standing in line for more than 15 minutes. Now we wonder where the problem is when the webpage we’re trying to access doesn’t open up within 2 seconds.  In that context, we may be tempted to settle for expediency rather than depth of thought; to immediately download and try a new concept or idea without asking some harder questions.

The biblical model that comes quickly to mind of those who thought well, who thought deeply is that of the Bereans (Acts 17:10-15).  They are described as those who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.”  Now here’s the thing that struck me.  Nowhere in the text does it give us a time frame for that process of “thinking”.  Rather, the emphasis is on a “grid” or a “framework” through which the Bereans ran all new ideas or concepts daily.  And that framework was the Scriptures.

Could we say that it’s not the amount of time that is to key, but giving time to think more deeply more theologically about ideas, issues and concepts?

Filed under: Community, Reflection | 4 Comments »

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