Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Too busy for spiritual growth or service

If you are a pastor or adult ministries staff, you are responsible for your church members’ spiritual growth or at least to some options before them to encourage their spiritual development. But spiritual growth takes time. If your church is like most every other, it’s full of busy, overcommitted people who have little, if any, time to invest in spiritual growth. So, how do you help busy people grow to be robust Christ-followers? How do you ignite their passion for growing more deeply in love with God? Good questions! This e-book was written to answer those very questions.

We realize that you may have heard some of these solutions before. But, knowing something and actually practicing it is not the same thing. Our aim is to position them anew and offer practical solutions you can use. We are also providing a webinar where we will discuss these further, and a half day seminar in which participants will actually experience some of the solutions we offer.

Anyone who is old enough to remember the 70s and 80s, undoubtedly remembers these common phrases and a line from a popular TV commercial lauding the new woman who can thrive doing it all:
»» Multitasking
»» Quality Time vs. Quantity Time
»» I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never-never-never-never let you forget you’re a man,
cause I’m a woman …
These are all about packing more and more into one’s life in order to be a success. Conferences and self-help books taught people how to cram more into their day.

The result was hurried and haggard people
»» with never ending to-do lists,
»» trying to perform at work and at home and, occasionally, dutifully at church,
»» staying busy, but bored,
»» putting off their own spiritual health until later.

As technology improves and expands, the pace of life continues to quicken. As if the 70s, 80s and 90swere not bad enough, now we can add overnight express shipping, handheld devices, texting and more to come. We are moving beyond the U.S. postal service, the land phone line, the VCR and the fax machine to even faster flow of information. But, the speed that it takes to stay competitive, to keep one’s job and stay on top of things, can have a huge detrimental effect as it crowds out spiritual health.

Church staff who are responsible for adult spiritual health and growth are stymied by this problem—how to engage busy people in activities and experiences that will facilitate their spiritual growth. “I don’t have time” is a familiar refrain. As a result, it’s hard to get people to show up. If they do show up, their participation may be irregular, making it difficult to build momentum. In addition, they may be too fatigued to focus on anything of much substance. Few can be expected to successfully complete small–group homework during the week, or even be willing to try. Meanwhile, a good number are vegging at home in front of the television 10, 20, 30 hours a week. Church staff, on more cynical days, may be of the opinion that church members want to be wowed and spoon-fed one hour a week and nothing more.

That is the problem, but what does one do about it?

That is the introduction to a 17 page e-book I have written on the subject of people being too busy for spiritual growth. Get the whole e-book free on our website beginning Thursday June 2.