Working By Priorities and Not Activities

In the Church we are often confronted with leading, or at least being a part of one activity or another. I can remember back to the days of my youth when practically every hour not spent at school, was spent organizing the next Youth activity or working on the up-coming church newsletter. After a few years of long nights the realization that there were more activities than I humanly had time for started to bubble up. The thoughts and principles presented here are partly based on nearly 9 years of being a husband, father, employee, and 15 years serving in my local church.

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity..." Ephesians 5:15-16a (NIV)

A critical way to check on how things are falling in line with God's will is to evaluate your time management and priorities and those of your church leadership team. Priorities help in achieving our number one goal: living a life pleasing to God. I can remember my Dad always telling me to "...look first for the kingdom of God..." (Matthew 6:33), but I didn't always understand what that meant. Fortunately for us the Bible clearly outlines what's important.

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Every Christian's Marching Orders
Each leader needs to lead by example, here are a few thoughts:

a. Sharing your faith (Acts 1:8, 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20)
b. Worshiping God and fellowshipping with the brethren (Hebrews 10:25)
c. Prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
d. Study of the Word of God (2nd Timothy 2:15)

Developing a list of your activities and setting their priorities based on those such as the above list goes towards deciding what is a good use of time.

The Biblical Order Of Priorities

1st - Your Personal Relationship with God
2nd - Your Family (1. spouse, 2. children)
3rd - Your Christian Ministry (church)
4th - Your Job

Setting priority to the relationships in your life help to further define what is important and what falls into secondary levels of importance. For the sake of brevity, let's look at the first two priorities on this list. The first is easy, Matthew 6:33 instructs us to seek what is of God and all other things will take care of themselves. The second item is so important to having a strong home life, one that will support your ministry as the years progress. Putting the proper attention to nurturing his or her relationship with their spouse and family will assure an awesome testimony. There is no stronger way for the devil to discourage a leader in the church than to see his family crumbling.

Developing A Weekly Schedule
In maintaining a weekly schedule, Godly priorities result in a pattern in your daily living. Crisis will arise, but the beauty of scheduling these important activities is that they will get done on a consistent basis. Not following a regular schedule of Godly activities allows the inevitable crisis to put one further behind in doing what is the will of God in your life. Here is a sample schedule:

Making Better Use Of Time
Christians are particularly susceptible to the devil when it comes to the issue of time. If Satan can fool us into making bad uses of our time, he is being successful in minimizing our effectiveness for the Lord and His Church. For the person wanting to mentor and disciple along with helping the Church to multiple, time becomes an important issue.

Here are some principles to help us be clear on the issue of time:

1. All men are created equal with respect to time
No one really has more or less time, there are 24 hours in the day for everyone. The difference is in how we use our time; sometimes we are tempted to come up with excuses of having less time to cover our bad time management.

2. We will always have enough time to do God's will
Time problems occur when we try to do more than God's will for our own lives. This principle should be a red flag in our minds whenever we find ourselves overwhelmed and unable to accomplish all that we are charged with doing.

"For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." - 1 Corinthians 14:33

3. Time is lost on the smaller things first
It is said that we lose minutes before we lose hours, days before we lose weeks. Often, time is lost in the gaps between activities doing unproductive things. Make a habit of keeping work with you to fill these gaps (reading material, homework, letters to write, Bible Scripture to memorize).

4. Relaxation is not wasted time
Our bodies were created in a such a way that we need down time and rest for our bodies to get back into an optimal state. The Old Testament concept of the Sabbath made the case for rest and relaxation. Jesus Himself gave us an even greater example:

"The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.' " - Mark 6:30-31

5. Time management is a measure of knowing God's will
Time management provides a way of walking carefully before God and of proving His perfect will.

I hope that these thoughts and principles will encourage you to make the best use of time for your relationship with God, your family, and your Church! God bless you.

"Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." - Ephesians 5:15-18

* A great book that goes deeper into the topic of Christian time management and priorities is "The Dynamics of Discipleship Training" by Gary W. Kuhne. Some of the principles outlined in this article are from this book.

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Jerry Figueroa is the co-executive producer of Inspired Christian.org. You can email him anytime at jerryfig@inspiredchristian.org with your comments or questions.

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