A place of work or a space to reflect?

In the final part of our series looking at the role the Church plays in our lives, the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, looks at the church and work-life balance. Church can often be as busy as work, with committees to attend, flowers to arrange or children to organise. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently criticised the lack of family friendly government policies, which forced parents to prioritize work above family life. However, in a recent interview with the DOOR as he opened a new childcare centre in Wantage, he admitted the Church also had a lot to learn about helping its members achieve a work-life balance.

Not many people say on their death bed that they wish they had spent more time at the office. Yet, many of us are working longer and longer hours while time spent with God and time spent with our families and friends is squeezed out. And time doing nothing – just idling in neutral doing not very much at all but enjoying the ride – well this disappears altogether. We do not think it is time spent wisely, but time thrown away.

The church itself sets the very worst example. Most clergy work too many hours, neglecting themselves and their families. Already over pressured lay people are expected to do more and more. The church is a busy, busy place. It’s as if we imagine that being more frantic than the world around us will somehow make us more attractive. At least people will feel at home in our frenzied, driven world. There just isn’t enough time we scream out.
Sometimes life in the church can feel like running up a down escalator. It can be done, but its fearful hard work, and the one thing you mustn’t do is stop.

But stopping is precisely what we must do. We must stop and appraise and evaluate how we use our time. For time itself is not the problem: it is what we choose to do with it. It was once put to me this way: your problem isn’t time management but Stephen management. Time is the given, Stephen is the variable. To do this we need to set
priorities.

Sorting priorities

So here’s a story to help. A time management consultant was once giving a lecture to a group of students. He placed a glass bowl on the table and filled it with large stones. ‘Is the bowl full?’ he asked them? ‘Yes’ they replied. He then pulled out a bag of pebbles from under the table and fitted them in around the large stones. ‘Is the bowl full?’ he asked again. ‘Yes’ they replied. He then pulled out a bag of sand and poured it into the bowl. ‘Is the bowl full now?’ he asked them. ‘Probably’ they cried, getting wise to his tricks. ‘No’, he shouted and poured a jug of water into the bowl. ‘What lesson can you learn from this demonstration?’ he asked them. The students started to discuss what they had seen. ‘Its amazing how much you can fit in if you really try’, was their suggested conclusion. ‘No’, said the time management consultant’ ‘the lesson is this: get your big stones in first or you won’t get them in at all’.

Hiding behind activity

So the lesson is simple: what are your big stones? For yourself, surely they are time for God; time for your family; time for the things that make you the person God has made you to be; time for rest and creativity. And in the church, surely they are time for worship and prayer; time for community and discipleship; time for evangelism and mission. But this is really hard to achieve. And what is one of the best ways of avoiding the painful discernment that is required? Well, being busy of course. But often busy with the wrong things, and often regretting the important things that are left undone. We are so busy climbing the ladder that we fail to see that it is leaning against the wrong wall. It is only by daring to stop, by discerning priorities, that we will get our big stones in place.

PS. There is another variation on the above story which has the time management consultant pouring a glass of beer into the bowl at the end rather than a jug of water. In which case the moral of the story is this: there’s always time for a drink. Amen to that.