A great lesson for me!

Tonight, cross-linked from another blog I read (a suburban southern baptist / counter-culture pastor, Steve McCoy), was a great post about reclaiming purpose.

Nothing feeds my creativity and strengthens my Spirit like prayer on a long walk. What spiritual formation practices keep you from drying up inside with God?

I was immediately reminded of my last three months in Barbados, where I walked literally hours each day (20 mins to/from work, and either 30 mins walk/jog in the morning followed by the same in the evening, plus any walks to the Uni, post office, town, shopping, etc.) Oh how I miss those long walks and communion with God!

Here is the rest of the post. I've included the bare-bones highlights here for those who might not be so keen on click-throughs!

1. Spend less time writing sermons, more time listening
2. Spend less time reading-writing on leadership and more time walking with/mentoring young leaders
3. Spend less time planning the worship gathering - more time in silence before God
4. Spend more time with the children, less time programming "entertainment with pizza."
5. Spend less time in meetings, more time in the neighborhood. (This one was so good I thought you might want to read it all: This is a constant struggle for me. To me, the organization of the church should be located in the congregation, carried on in the gifts. We need gather only for a few meetings a year for accountability financially. I recognize several folk disagree with me. How do you go abouit managing necessary meetings? )
6. Spend less time in meetings figuring out details to make things work better, and more time in meetings where we ask "what is God doing?"
7. Spend less time trying to please Christians
8. Spend less time answering bizarre twisted questions about outlier doctrines
9. Spend less time worrying about numbers
10. Spend less time frantically trying to catch up with all the words I have to write