A "Critical Challenge" for western Christians that might surprise you

What would you say are the three most critical challenges for western Christians today?

Changing sexual ethics? Declining church attendance? Evangelism in a post-Christian context? The need to strengthen marriages? Raising the next generation? Biblical preaching? (OK, that’s more than three).

How about: Time, and how you use it.

THE COST OF BUSYNESS
Recently, Richard Coekin, the Director of the Co:Mission church network in London, wrote that “clarifying biblical, realistic priorities for our use of time is one of the most critical challenges in contemporary western Christianity”.

The statistics bear out his claim: a recent worldwide survey of those in “managerial” positions showed that nearly half have seen their work hours rise in the past five years. British families now spend just 30 minutes a day together—and 70% of parents say that this time is usually spent in silence watching TV or on the web. This is just part of the cost of our busyness.

If that’s normal life, and then you add church commitments on top of that, it’s not surprising that so many Christians feel on the edge of burning out, guilty about what’s still on last-week’s to-do list, anxious about how to cope with the demands that will come tomorrow, and wishing there were a way to be busy without being burdened, fulfilled without feeling exhausted. This is the additional cost of Christian busyness.

There really is more to do, and less time to do it in.

And most of us think: But it’s impossible.

But actually, it isn’t, at least not according to Matt Fuller, the pastor of Christ Church Mayfair in the heart of London—one of the busiest, most time-pressurised environments on earth—and the author of Time for Every Thing?

“Obsessing about time, being burdened by lack of time, feeling guilty all the time, is bad,” he writes. “We know that, but can we escape it?

“We have actually been given a lot of time. Time is a gift—a gift we’re designed to enjoy. The Bible would encourage us to see time not as a wretched commodity that we never have enough of, but as a gift. There are, and always will be, 24 hours in a day. That won’t change.

The Bible would encourage us to see time not as a wretched commodity that we never have enough of, but as a gift

“What needs to change is how my heart views those hours.”

FOUR WAYS TO VIEW YOUR TIME
How do you start? Among other things, Matt says we need to:

1. Allow being loved by God to release us from the burdens to save ourselves or prove ourselves.
2. Remember what matters most: that spending time with Jesus is the only non-negotiable on the to-do list.
3. Appreciate that there isn’t time for everything; but that there is time to do every thing God calls us to do.
4. Understand what God tells us we must spend time doing as workers, members of a family, church members, etc—what we can do, and equally are free not to do—and what we must avoid doing.

MAKE TIME TO THINK ABOUT TIME
It’s very easy to spend our life trying to do too many things, or spending too much time on the wrong things, or too little on the crucial things. How many churches have dwindled or split because too few people thought clearly enough about how to use their time? How many marriages have broken down or broken up because of a lack of careful, quality time? How many faiths have been shipwrecked because less and less time was spent well?

It is a critical issue, particularly in the “asset-rich, time-poor” societies of the western world. And, as Matt says,
“You have to make time to work out how best to use your time; and you need to do it regularly.” Perhaps, this summer holiday season, it’s time for you to do just that?

Time for Every Thing? How to be busy without feeling burdened is out now in the UK, and available for pre-order in the US.

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