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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…

By Todd Engstrom

Although I was raised in the church and had a knowledge of God, I didn’t embrace Jesus until I heard gospel preached and lived out by some Young Life leaders. God has proven faithful and good to me since that day, even in great suffering and loss. I have learned to treasure Romans 8:28 as a wellspring of hope and truth.

God has blessed me with an amazing wife (Olivia), three sons (Micah, Hudson and Owen) and a daughter (Emmaline). Growing up in the northwest, the thought never crossed my mind that I would have four children who are native Texans. Despite landing in the south, I still watch Notre Dame games with my children every Saturday in hopes they will land at my alma mater.

2 replies on “Managing Time and Relationships”

to add: honestly for me this is one of the biggest hindrances I have with getting in the word, and truly being Still before the Lord.
I think that spreading yourself so thin that you are ineffective isn’t what the Lord intends. I feel relationships are a sweet picture of love and care that we are trusted with. I think too, that to completely invest in relationships, they require time, more than anything else. To give someone time that is precious especially in a place to be called on frequently, is a testament of Jesus alone. Its selflessly giving time to a person, investing.

This is good. I pray that the Lord would allow me to be an 100% kind of person, instead of just 40 here 60 here, it’s time to actually be COMMITTED. I think to Jesus when it comes to commitments, and if he was just 30 or 40% committed, we would not be here today. He was completely committed, completely devoted, SOULED out for the Lord. woo, good stuff todd. thanks.

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