Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

The busy Christian's guide to busyness

Asking the right questions

THE BUSY CHRISTIAN’S GUIDE TO BUSYNESS
By Tim Chester
IVP. 159pages. £7.99
ISBN 1 84474 124 3

I have never met Tim Chester but I like him. He writes in a clear and interesting style supported by significant research, knowledge and experience. Busyness is certainly one of the big issues facing Britain and its Christian churches today and this book is written in ‘commuter-size’ chapters along with the helpful advice not to try to read it if you drive your journey to work!

Thankfully, it is not a book about a technique to magically create more time where it doesn’t exist. It starts with a couple of chapters looking at busyness in our society and churches, exposing its consequences and asking the question ‘Is busy bad?’ I was particularly struck by his description of the way we use holidays as ‘binge resting’ as being symptomatic of the imbalance in our lifestyle. (Confession — I read the book and wrote the review on a binge rest!). A chapter on using time efficiently (I sometimes find time management stuff a bit oppressive personally) gives some useful advice and opens the door into the meat of the book. The author challenges how we set our priorities by putting spiritual needs ahead of our big life choices of lifestyle, job and home. We are encouraged to pursue God’s glory in all that we do so that we avoid compartmentalising our lives unhelpfully.

The remaining seven chapters identify and challenge some of the reasons people give for the pressure they put themselves under, leading to unhelpful busyness. These include: ‘I need to prove myself’, ‘. . . other people’s expectations’, ‘. . . things get out of control’, ‘I prefer being under pressure’, ‘I need the money’ and ‘I want to make the most of life’. The concluding chapter points us to the need to find our rest in God ‘in the midst of busyness’. At times, reading some of these chapters, I felt that his supposition or summary didn’t fit me or my experience. That is inevitable — the whole of life and life experience (busy as I am!) is not worked out in me.

The value of this book I believe is not that it provides answers (although it does contain some), but rather that it helps us ask the questions. For me it is the sort of guide that sets out what is in the park rather than one which claims to tell you the perfect route to walk through it. It is well researched and contains lots of contemporary illustrations from literature, life and cinema, but at £7.99 for 150 pages (even from Tim — who I like!) seems a little pricey but worth it if you are struggling with busyness.

Ian Parker,
who attends a Grace Baptist Church and works as a Director for a Local Authority