Sept 18 A thought from Ogden's "New Reformation"

As I sat down to read from Greg Ogden's "The New Reformation" tonight I reviewed the passages I'd highlighted during my last reading.  One of them gave me pause for thought.  Continuing with my last post's theme of quiet time, I noted this in Ogden:

. . . quiet reflection on the Word of God is a necessary part of a pastor's practice.  Ruminating on the Scriptures with the unhurried opportunity for meditative prayer is essential for good preaching to bear fruit.  More and more pastors are building into their schedules some retreat days for personal renewal.  This quiet setting provides opportunity to bring the needs of God's people before the Lord.  Protected study and meditation time is not stealing time from ministry--it is the ministry. 

While it's true I'm not a preaching pastor, I'd still enjoy some retreat days to have quiet time for prayer and study.  I'd never considered the importance of a preaching pastor's need for quiet time to be with God.  As Ogden's book points out, many of us come to church with many preconceived notions about a lot of things; assuming that the pastor is somehow magically a "man of God" is no doubt on that list.  It amazes me--when I take the time to stop and think about it--how much of our time we give to the work of the Lord yet don't have time for the Lord of the work!  God's given me the grace--after a couple years of being way too busy--to allow myself to say "no" and clear a lot of things off my plate. 

One of the most important lessons I've learned in the past year is that there are a lot of good causes out there to spend your time on but I don't have enough time to spend it on every one of them.  Looking back to the summer when we were launching The Grove, I had something going on every night of the week--training to be a Fusion leader, leading a customer service class for the staff at SafeHaven, attending the preview meetings of Men's Fraternity as well as my usual volunteering for SafeHaven and Fences for Fido.  All of these activities are worthwhile things to spend my time on, but spending my time on ALL of them quickly lead to burnout, exhaustion and a bad attitude.  In the first couple chapters of Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life" he challenges the reader to consider that they are probably doing too much in their lives.  They've decided to explore his book in order to find some meaning to all the busy-ness of life and his first lesson is:  if you want to find purpose, stop chasing so many pursuits. 

I've made this idea of doing less one of my guidelines for this current season of life.  I've got things pared down to SafeHaven and church as my two big time commitments outside of work and family.  Now I've added PESM to that, but that's an extension of what I'm doing at church, i.e. working for the Kingdom.  Once I figure out how to incorporate some quiet time into my regular, daily schedule I'll be in a sweet spot!