Tyranny Of The Urgent

On Tuesday mornings at our church,  we are doing the book Faithful, Abundant, and True

I have done Kay Arthur Studies before.  I have done Beth Moore Studies before.  I had never heard of Priscilla Shirer, and was nervous about her section in this.  (I lead the Tuesday morning group)  Wow.  Apparently she is the daughter of Dr. Evans (Sorry, I really don't know who he is either) and her brother was on the tv show The Voice just last week?  Others in our group knew this.

What I know, is that she has an amazing gift for speaking to moms.  We just finished the 4th video segment, so next week we move on to Beth Moore..  and I'm actually really sad that we won't be hearing more from Priscilla next week, as much as I love Beth Moore.

She shared from this book in her first video segment.  I went online and downloaded the book to read - it is awesome.  Now any of you who know me know that I use my phone for EVERYTHING (well, except phone calls..  I really dislike phone calls!) and it is always with me.  For me, it wasn't the phone that is the "urgent" in my life..  I still believe my phone makes my life run so much smoother.  I struggle more with the cleaning and day to day running of this home (and farm) being the "urgent".   And it was a confirmation for me, a reminder, that I want to spend more time with people this year.  It was my goal last year, and I made progress, but even more so this year, I want to invest my time with people, not just in keeping the house from being condemned.  (It's a mystery to me how 4 teens can make so much mess when they are all hardly home any more!)  

Any way, how it all applies in my life is irrelevant - you should read it for yourself.  It's really a fantastic book!  The version I linked to below has questions at the end, I am working on them today.

Tyranny Of The Urgent PDF:
http://my279days.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Tyranny-of-the-Urgent.pdf

"Gordon Govier, a journalist working with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship wrote, "When Charles Hummel wrote his classic essay 'Tyranny of the Urgent,' in 1967, he identified the telephone as among the worst offenders against our peace and complacency. And that was before we carried the offending instrument with us everywhere and embellished it with email, computers, cameras, downloadable ring tones and music files.


"The issue," Hummel said, "is not so much a shortage of time as a problem of priorities." Or, as a cotton mill manager once told him, "Your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important."  "


There is another book by Hummel - Freedom From The Tyranny of the Urgent, but I have not yet looked at it...

BSF Seminar - Becoming A Servant Of God

I usually attend the BSF seminars when they are offered, they are often VERY informative.  I signed up for this one not really knowing what it was, and when I heard what it was...  I almost didn't go.  But I had committed to going with a friend, it was her first seminar..  so I was "stuck".  I'm glad - this turned out to be my favorite seminar so far!  (Homiletics would be my second favorite)


It was 20 minutes in group, and hour and a half of personal quiet time, 10 min group closing. Not a normal BSF seminar. And group quiet time made me nervous- I didn't know what to expect.

But I should have known BSF would do it well. We each received a 4 page hand out for our quiet time, and it took me an hour to read all the scriptures, answer the questions, do the personal reflections, and pray on the specifics. The last half hour I spent adding some of the verses to my flashcard app for memorization, cleaning up the titles on some of my you version bookmarks, and reading this weeks regular BSF lesson notes.

The topic today was on being a servant of God. Specific categories included:

-what the bible says abt servants- 7 verses, find 1 word from each verse to descibe a servant

-attributes a servant should NOT have (5 verses)

- what may be required of a servant (5 verses)

- whom are we called to serve? (4 verses)

- what specific goals does the bible tell us servants should have? (6 verses)

- what results does the bible say I may expect if I serve God? (6 verses)

As I went through these, I highlighted all the verses in a pale green/blue and labeled them servant in my youversion app, and I titled each bookmark based on my answers. I love that feature of youversion!

The last 2.5 pages of our work was personal evaluation with questions regarding our biblical education and training, our regular communication with God (quiet time), our spiritual gifts, places of service God has prepared for me (prayer, then questions about areas where I may see a need), ending with what my response to God is and 5 more verses to examine to help guide us in how to pray to be a servant (fruitful service is preceeded by fervent prayer)

It was so practical, and applicable- I absolutely loved it!