22Jan 2010 by Nigel Ring

Time Management pt 4 – Appointments

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Christian ministry, Equipping, Good Practice, Planning, Time Management
A promise The techniques of Time Management I am going to share with you give you a water-tight system. There is no reason for you ever to miss an appointment or activity that is important to you again! Can that be true? Yes! But first, it is important to have an understanding of time. Types of Time Broadly, there are two categories of time that comprise your day - Appointments and Discretionary. Appointments Activities that come under the category of ‘appointments’ carry the implication of being predetermined. They have a start time attached to them. Sadly, they do not always have a finish time - and this may be one of the things that occurred on your list of challenges from the last blog – interminable meetings. Tip: In order to…
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15Jan 2010 by Nigel Ring

Time Management pt 3 – Using time intentionally

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Christian ministry, Equipping, Good Practice, Time Management
Pursuing Goals What are your goals in life? Over the next ten years? Five years? This year? Are you intentional about planning steps to fulfill these goals? If you are going to use time effectively – to help you do so is the purpose of this series – it is important to have some sense of direction and destiny. Clearly some have this much more precisely defined than others. The young swimmer aspiring for gold at the Olympics has a passion that will cause her to practice swimming at 5 am each morning before school for many years, a discipline that requires intentional planning and sacrifice. But not many of us are budding Olympians! But what about life? Marriage, Career, or other ambitions? Where do you picture yourself in 5,…
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07Jan 2010 by Nigel Ring

Time Management pt 2 – God’s perspective and cultural differences

Administrative Skills, Christian ministry, Equipping, General, Time Management
What does God think? Before we discuss specifics about Time Management I want to take just one posting to consider briefly what God’s view of time is. In Ps 90 the psalmist tells us to ‘number our days’ (v12) having already told us in verse 10 that ‘the years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty’. I once spoke to a Godly ‘elder statesman’ who took verse 12 literally, telling me the exact number of days since he started praying for revival, which coincided with the number of days since he became a Christian! 70 years is 25,567 days. How many of those have you had? Use the diagram to work it out. Verse 12 continues ‘…that we may get a heart of wisdom’. The…
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04Jan 2010 by Nigel Ring

Time Management pt 1 – What is it all about?

Administrative Skills, Equipping, General, Planning, Time Management
Do you feel in control of your time? I think I can help you! 25 years ago I recognised that I was very inefficient at managing my time despite the fact I had been heading up a research team in Rehabilitation Engineering for 15 years. I had never heard the expression ‘Time Management’ and started to pray about how to improve. God sent a wonderful solution in the form of a visitor from the USA who told me about, and sent me an audio course on, the Insight Time Management System (sadly, I can find no current reference to this). Had God answered my prayer? When I received this course I had to make a decision – was this God’s answer or not?’ I decided to believe it was and…
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30Nov 2009 by Nigel Ring

Biblical Administration part 8 – Qualifications of an Administrator – ‘above reproach’

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Biblical Administration, Christian ministry, Equipping, Finance, Good Practice
In Acts 6 we saw some of the qualifications of an Administrator relating both to character and spiritual standing. 1 Timothy 3:1-13 deals with similar issues in a more systematic way and, because it is so important not to appoint people who lack these Biblical criteria, I want to spend a little more time considering what Paul wrote to Timothy (1) The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. (2) Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, (3) not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. (4) He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, (5) for…
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12Nov 2009 by Nigel Ring

Biblical Administration part 5 – Knowing the Leader’s heart

Administration in the Church, Administrative Skills, Christian ministry, Conference Administration, Equipping, Planning
The right context Knowing the Leader’s heart is a vital key to effective administration. When we looked at the spiritual gift of administration in 1 Cor 12:28 we saw how the Greek word kubernesis, the root of ‘administrating’, equated to the pilot of a ship in New Testament times. He was responsible for the ship’s welfare and a successful voyage but was also physically close to the merchant who had hired him as he was travelling on board. Just picture how, during the voyage, much discussion would have taken place, the vessel being small, and the ‘pilot’ would have learnt much about the Merchant’s business and expectations. Maybe he was even able to suggest helpful ways of increasing the Merchant's trade from the knowledge he had gained during his sea-faring…
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