I’m back!  After about ten days of moving a new office into my home and my old office and storage into my new space, I’m more or less back on line and getting ministry done.  I’m still calling my home office my “office” while my new space is now my “studio.”  Having this much space to spread out and work has given me a fresh wind and I’m very excited about where it will blow.

You could think of today’s post as very basic practical theology.  I’m finding that better organization of my “stuff” is creating greater productivity.  This is hardly profound, but is hopefully useful.

I had been bogged down in cramped space, often looking through the same pile of papers multiple times looking for this or that.  Keeping up with email (I have four active email accounts), returning phone calls and such were major challenges.  But with the clutter gone – two trips to the county dump – I can spread out and work on the myriad of ministry items that pop up in a day’s time in a very efficient and effective manner.

One of the most radical practical changes in my routine is that I have eliminated drawers in my office.  After emptying stuffed drawer after stuffed drawer and throwing most of the contents away, I have concluded that the best way to avoid overstuffed drawers of useless items is not to have any drawers.  Most of that kind of filing is now done with my trash can.

As I was trying to come up with other ways of streamlining the mundane elements of my ministry world, a verse popped into my mind:

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV)

“Throw off everything that hinders.”  I think my cluttered spiritual drawers might need a purging as well.  It’s difficult to run the race when you’re “entangled.”  It’s difficult for a church to move the heavenly Great Commission forward when its bogged down in earthly religious trivia that consumes kingdom resources without bearing kingdom fruit.

Perhaps there’s more to this post that I thought!