Busy, Frantic, Overwhelmed

I appreciate Randy Harris’ words in, Like a Shepherd Lead Us:

This is the place to begin any discussion of spirituality for church leaders — a group of people who surely fit the description of being busy, frantic and overwhelmed. Let me say it as clearly as I can: Spirituality cannot be one more task piled on top of people already overburdened with the care of God’s flock. Enough is enough! We are not the Messiah. That job, thankfully, has been taken and done extraordinarily well! You and I must quit acting as if the whole of eternity depends on us doing one more job.

The call of the spiritual life is not to more frantic activity. The spiritual life is rather the call to peace. So, as we come to walk more closely with God, the chaos should recede from our lives. We cease to be under the tyranny of frantic business.

When I visited the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., the leaders repeated a phrase that has haunted me ever since. "If you are overextended, you are under-committed." They take commitment so seriously that they believe one can’t be committed to thirty different things. So if you are overextended, it’s virtually guaranteed that you’re under-committed. I think that is the description of most Christian leaders I know, and it is certainly a description of me. Deeper spirituality is not a matter of doing more stuff.

(Randy Harris, "Spirituality for the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed" in Like a Shepherd Lead Us, edited by David Fleer and Charles Siburt)