Daily Archives: September 6, 2012

To Busy to Be Creative?

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Every month I have to write a short introduction to the Wycliffe staff newsletter. Here is an edited version of what I wrote this month

I’ve been staring at this screen for ages now, and my introductory piece still hasn’t written itself. It’s very frustrating!

 It’s not as though I wasn’t productive earlier in the day. I’ve written my article for the next Wycliffe Magazine, answered quite a few emails, written a blog post and started to think of a way to answer a rather irate supporter. I’ve also talked through a couple of personnel issues, checked over an online presentation and led a prayer meeting. But here we are at two pm and my brain seems to have turned to mush.

If I’m honest, the problem is that I’ve not given myself enough time to read, reflect and recharge my batteries. When there are so many things to write, talks to give, meetings to attend and problems to solve, it can be extremely difficult to find time just to be quiet. But the problem is, the more I have to give out, the more I need time to reflect and meditate. I need to take in so that I can give out.

 So rather than give you any wise words this month, I’m simply going to apologise; I’ve not made the space to be reflective and this means that I’m finding it very difficult to be creative. I’d also ask that you pray that I will be able to make some time for reading and seriously meditating on what God is saying.

 Oh, one more thing. I bet I’m not the only one! 

Not a Ticking Clock

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Have I posted this before? If so, I don’t apologise, it’s worth reading twice!

“We should not treat the Great Commission as a ticking clock, just waiting for the last people group to ‘hear’ the gospel before the Lord is, as it were, permitted to return. That kind of thinking has transformed it into a ‘job to complete’, ‘an unfinished task’. But with its command to disciples to make disciples it is a self-replicating mandate that we will never ‘complete’ – not in the sense that we can never reach all the nations (we can and we should), but in the sense that the making of disciples, and the re-discipling of those who have formerly been evangelised, are tasks that go on through multiple lives and generations.”[1]


[1] Christopher Wright, The Mission of God’s People : a Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan, 2010), p. 285.