Managing Time and Relationships

I’ve been pondering proactively managing my time lately as my ministry slate continues to get more diverse and challenging. The difficulty for me is scheduling specific time for study and stillness when there are so many pressing issues and meetings. I definitely need to grow in faith and obedience to God that time spent praying and thinking is more powerful than action, as my life very clealry does not demonstrate that I am fully honoring him.

Secondly, I am realizing that I am excellent at task management and efficient at task-driven work, but I am sloppy at managing relationships.  My role is consistently changing to one that revolves more fully around people and less around tasks, and my skill set is vastly underdeveloped and less cross-functional for that end.  It sounds almost mechanical to talk about relationships as a commodity to be managed, but I am realizing that if I am overextended relationally, I am ineffective with just about everyone.

Jesus very clearly had several layers of relationship around Him during His ministry, and invested differently in different layers.  I know in my head that is an effective strategy, but I am having difficulty walking that out, especially in the rapidly changing and growing environment that is our church.

There is absolutely no conclusion to this post, it’s just me thinking out loud.  Feel free to chime in…