Freedom From Busyness
Did you know that over half of each dollar spent on food in America is spent “eating out”? In the U.S., we average 47 hours of work per week, and according to Time Magazine, we receive 11 paid holidays, and 12 days of vacation per year. In Europe, it’s around 38-39 hours per week, 8-10 paid holidays, and 5-6 weeks of vacation per year. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics’ Time Use Survey, in 2006, 35% of employees now work on weekend days and the average parent of a child 6-years or younger spends 2 full hours a day providing primary care to the child while holding down a full-time job. Check out this stat: “People work approximately 8 weeks longer per year than in 1969—in the space of a single generation—but for roughly the same income (after adjusting for inflation).” (Check out this page to get really worried!)
In our fast-food, fast-pace, and fast-track world, it sure seems like we’re all living at 100 miles an hour just to keep up with everything, doesn’t it?! And the result is a life that is a mile wide but an inch deep. Our relationships with people and with God suffer. Chuck Swindoll says it well:
Busyness rapes relationships. It substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man. It fills a calendar but fractures a family. It cultivates a program that plows under priorities. Many a church boasts about its active program: “Something for every night of the week for everybody.” What a shame! With good intentions the local assembly can create the very atmosphere it was designed to curb.
After exhorting us not to be anxious and likening us (by way of contrast) to busybodies who “toil” and “spin” (Matthew 6:28, ESV) out of a nervous need to “lay up for ourselves [sic.] treasures on earth” (Matthew 5:19, ESV), Jesus says, in Matthew 6:33 (ESV), “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Let’s learn together during this series how we can more effectively (though not quicker or easier!) “seek first the kingdom of God.” Based on the study series “Freedom From Busyness: Biblical Help for Overloaded People” by Michael Zigarelli, we’ll be looking at these 5 topics:
Sunday, August 31 – The Bondage of Busyness
Sunday, September 7 – Saying No
Sunday, September 14 – Slowing Down
Sunday, September 21 – Simple Living
Sunday, September 28 – Freedom From Busyness, For What?
Come join us as we look at some important ways to reestablish your intimacy with God and your relationships with people! The Sunday morning sermon outlines will come with some practical helps and questions for further study on the back. We’ll also be going deeper with an interactive 6-week Wednesday night study and discussion group, from 7:00-8:00 p.m. (in the Bond Between Us classroom). No need to sign up or bring anything, it’s free and we’ll provide the materials and the coffee!