Archive for the Recommended Link Category


Aug 13

One More Great Article on Busyness

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

At the risk of recommending so much new reading that I add to your busyness and stress, I can’t pass up recommending one more: “Taking Care of Busyness” by John Ortberg.

This is an article that I just today re-discovered in my files after first reading it in Leadership magazine in 1998. Though more than 10 years old now, the article is probably more needed and helpful today than when it was written, since the problems of busyness and stress have only seemed to get worse.

After re-reading it today, I know why I filed this away: this is a great article. It has pointed conviction, warm encouragement, enlightening stats, practical suggestions, and diverse quotes (from Kierkegaard to Alice in Wonderland).

His prescription is to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from our lives. 

Jesus was often busy but he was never hurried. Being busy is an outer condition; being hurried is a sickness of the soul. Jesus never went about the busyness of his ministry in a way that severed the life-giving connection between himself and his Father. He never did it in a way that interfered with his ability to give love when that was what was called for. He observed a regular rhythm of withdrawal from activity, for solitude and prayer. He ruthlessly eliminated hurry from his life.

Go read the whole thing. I really do think it’s worth your time. And then prayerfully seek to apply it. I’m praying for wisdom for you and yours as I write this.

Aug 13

How Stressed and Harried Are We?

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

As another follow-up to the sermon on Mary and Martha, this assessment from MSNBC writer, Julia Sommerfield, is illustrative and sobering. She suggests that most Americans are so stressed and harried that they seemingly live to complain about how stressed they are! 

Millions of Americans are so stressed they don’t have time for, among other things: lunch, vacation, sleep, exercise, time with their family or even sex. One thing they do have plenty of time for? Talking about how stressed they are. …

People are now determining their self-worth on how busy they are and how much they have to do …

Ouch! I know. But go ahead and read the whole thing. 

Aug 13

A Plurality Helps Accountability

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link

You may have seen this on Zach’s blog already, but it’s worth repeating here since it aptly represents our church’s leadership structure and our desires for accountability.

From J.D. Greeare:

We try, for these reasons, to have a culture of transparency here at the Summit. I never lock my office. Several people have passwords who can get into my inbox if they so choose. My assistant knows where I am every single second (i.e. that my wife doesn’t know where I am), and my assistant can tell any of our executive team who asks. Is that annoying sometimes? Of course. But not as much as looking at my little girls and telling them mom can’t stand to live with me anymore.

Furthermore, I am accountable to a group of men, our elder team, which is made up of both staff and “lay” men. They, as Hebrews 13:7 says, really “know my way of life.” They know where I live. They observe my marriage. They can, and do, stop by my house. We eat dinner together. Our kids play together. I know them and they know me. They watch out for me because I need watching. I am just a man, and greater men than me have fallen.

Does all this sometimes create tension? Of course. Does that mean there are times the “lay elders” seem “behind” in their thinking… and since they don’t live in the “professional” Christian world that sometimes they are not as ready for the changes I want to bring? Yes. But if I’m worth anything as a leader, shouldn’t I be able to convince these godly, mature men of what I’m seeing and persuade them to follow? If I can’t convince THEM, how can I ever expect to be able to convince the church of what I see? Is my ministry all about unchallenged executive power?

I’m not saying we have a perfect system here at the Summit or that it, in any way, guarantees that I or the other pastors will always remain faithful. Our sinful, conniving flesh can always find a way to cheat the systems, even the best ones.

I just know that it is not part of God’s plan for me to live without friends before whom I humble myself, to whom I am “submitted,” and who can observe and speak into my life. And these should be the people who see me and go to church with me. As wise King Solomon says, “Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.” (Prov 27:10) In other words, better a non-trained lay-elder nearby than Billy Graham in another city.

You can read the whole thing here.  

Aug 12

Books on Busyness and Restoring Rest

2009 | by Parker Landis | Category: Books,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

In Sunday’s sermon, Ryan mentioned the book The Overload Syndrome, by Richard Swenson.  This book is about identifying and combating overactivity, overcommitment, busyness, and stress — all of which have become the norm for the average American. Swenson writes from a Christian perspective and from his expertise in the medical field. His erarlier book on the same topic, Margin, is also very helpful. Also instructive on this topic is Charles Hummel’s now-classic booklet Tyranny of the Urgent. But perhaps less well known is the full-book-length version, Freedom from the Tyranny of the Urgent. May these books help you to restore a restful schedule!

Aug 12

Spurgeon on Mary and Martha

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

Last Sunday, we looked at Mary and Martha’s hospitality to Jesus in Luke 10:38-42 (audio here). I’ve since had the joy of reading Spurgeon’s sermon on the story. Here are a couple of highlights.

To those busy do-ers, like Martha, he says:

Perhaps, you are a very hard-working man. You have very little rest during the week, and in order to bring up your family comfortably, you strain every nerve; you live as you should, economically, and you work diligently; from morning to night the thought with you is, “How shall I fill these many little mouths? How shall I bring them up properly? How shall I, as a working man, pay my way?” Very right; I wish all working men would be equally thoughtful and economical, and that there were fewer of those foolish spendthrifts who waste their substance when they have it, and who, the moment there is a frost, or they are out of employ, become paupers, loafing upon the charity of others. I commend your industry, but, but, but, at the same time, is that all? Were you made only to be a machine for digging holes, laying bricks, or cutting out pieces of wood? Were you created only to stand at a counter and measure or weigh out goods? do you think your God made you for that and that only? Is this the chief end of man—to earn shillings a week, and try to make ends meet therewith? is that all immortal men were made for? As an animal like a dog, nor a machine like a steam engine, can you stand up and look at yourself, and say, “I believe I am perfectly fulfilling my destiny”? I beg this morning to interject that quiet “but,” right into the middle of your busy life, and ask from you space for consideration, a pause for the voice of wisdom, that a hearing may be granted her… Yes, but there is a higher bread to be earned, and there is a higher life to be considered. Hence the Lord puts it, “Labour not for the meat that perisheth,” that is to say, not for that first and foremost; “but for that which endureth unto life eternal.” God hath made man that he may glorify him; and whatever else man accomplishes, if he fail to reach that end, and make eternal shipwreck, unless he comes to sit at Jesus’ feet; there and there only can he learn how to sanctify his business and to consecrate his labour, and so bring forth unto God; through his grace, that which is due to him.

Of those who might misappropriate Mary’s example with frivolity and love of pleasure, he says:

They are not cumbered with much serving; rather, they laugh at those who cumber themselves about anything. They are merry as the birds, their life is as the flight of a butterfly, which lightly floats from flower to flower, according to its own sweet will; with neither comb to make, nor hive to guard. Now, thou gay young man, what doth solomon say to thee? “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; but”—there comes in a pause, and the cool hand of wisdom is laid upon the hot brow of folly, and the youth is asked to think awhile—”but know thou, that for all these things, God will bring thee into judgement.” It cannot be that an immortal spirit was made of frivolities; a soul immortal spending all her fires on the playthings of the world, “resembles ocean into tempest toss’d, to waft a feather, or to drown a fly.” So great a thing as an immortal soul could not have been made by God with no higher object than to spend itself upon trifles light as air. Oh, pause a while, thou careless, godless one, and hear the voice that saith unto thee, “but.” There is something more than the fool’s hell; and should not life be? The charms of music, the merriment of the gay assembly, the beauties of art, and the delights of banqueting—there must be something more for thee than these; and something more must be required of thee than that thou shouldst waste from morn to night thy precious time upon nothing but to please thyself. 

You can read the whole thing here. 

Also, some older DSC sermons might be of interest if you want follow-up on a related theme: