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.
