Saturday, August 13, 2005

processing my time/space continuum

This week I had three learning institutions enquire about me teaching block courses with them. One was in the US, two were in different places in New Zealand. I held a fourth conversation about some teaching in Australia. I’d love to be doing block courses in different places, and being with students wrestling with life and faith today.

Yet I also have responsibilities as father and husband to three excellent people, pastor of a growing and complex church and lecturer. And some of you like the spare time I put into this blog and some of you also appreciate the time I put into writing.

Does anyone out there have any ideas on how I can manage such requests without over-stretching my time/space continuum?

Posted by steve at 05:09 PM

5 Comments

  1. One way is to stretch the time envelope. You probably can’t do them all next year. But you can do what many speakers do – say you’re available in 2007 or 2008.

    Comment by Duncan Macleod — August 14, 2005 @ 12:56 am

  2. How about training a few disciples to do some of this for you?

    Comment by Matt — August 14, 2005 @ 1:57 am

  3. “father and husband to three excellent people” … oops, that line didn’t come out quite right … but it did make me smile 🙂

    Comment by Michael Sampson — August 15, 2005 @ 6:11 am

  4. Can you make use of technology resources available for e-learning? Eg, deliver the lectures by video conference, and have a learners-oriented discussion forum for interacting with the students? That deals with the “space” issue in the main, and then the question only becomes “time”.

    A final word in terms of “space”, since I know that being with students during learning is very important: perhaps you could offer to do a one-week trip to the two US places, and spend an intensive day with each of the classes.

    Happy to discuss further. You have my details.

    Comment by Michael Sampson — August 15, 2005 @ 6:14 am

  5. You can’t Steve.
    1. There are too many opportunities and too few hours for many people so you have to prioritise and say ‘no’ often.
    2. Stay faithful to your prexisting commitments and your priorities in the global commission and life.
    3. For every new thing you take on ask what old thing will go?
    4. Follow Stephen Covey’s Quadrant 2 principle as found in 7 Habits.
    5. Discern the real inner motivation to take on a particular task or offer
    6. Ask how ‘will this help me get where I want to be in 5 years time?’

    Comment by Andrew — August 15, 2005 @ 11:14 pm

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