Ben Stewart

This morning I had a great discussion with a couple of friends about time management. One of the things we did together was a figure out whether or not each of us is addicted to urgency. If you’re like me you are asking yourself what “addicted to urgency” means. I mean, I’ve seen my fair share of Intervention episodes but I have never even thought about someone being addicted to urgency. However, after our conversation and a little contemplation I think this might be a real problem in our society–and especially in church leadership.

So what are the qualities of an urgency addict?

Here are a few questions to get you started on figuring out whether you might struggle with this issue of urgency. (Please note: these questions are not intended to deliver any kind of diagnosis but are provided merely for introspection.)

• Do you feel like you do your best work under pressure?
• Do you enjoy–and look forward to–the rush of adrenaline that you get when working with short deadlines or crisis situations?
• Do you keep thinking that someday you will be able to do what you really want?
• Do you find yourself giving up quality time with important people in your life to handle crisis situations at work?
• While working, do you feel the pressure of all the other things you have to do that are hanging over your head?

If some of those resonate with you a little more than they should, you might want to take this Urgency Index quiz and start to analyze your workflow to see if this is a problem in your life. A lot of this discussion was based on thoughts in Stephen Covey‘s book First Things First, so you might even consider picking up a copy of that, for further study.

While urgency addiction may truly be an important issue, this conversation doesn’t stop there. It is actually only the beginning of a greater conversation about how we prioritize lives and what we consider “normal.”

Let’s take a step back from this specific issue and look at other things in our society that we let creep into our lives. Anne Jackson just posted some great thoughts about things that we often put in the forefront of our lives without even realizing how much they impact how we live. More importantly she asks how often we fail to take those issues seriously. How is it that we determine which addictions or distractions are serious and which are joke-worthy?

Not to over-spiritualize the situation here, but ultimately any addiction is a form of idolatry, right? An addicted person is misaligning his priorities and focusing too much on something that is ultimately trivial instead of focusing on things that are truly important. I don’t bring this up as a condemnation of addicts or to cause anyone struggling with addiction to feel guilty, but rather to compare the things that our society (and the Church) views as serious problems to the things those same people view as normal behavior.

Take, for example, the “Baptist potluck.” I have traveled to many churches over the past few years and taken part in many potluck meals. Almost every time I left the table more full than I should have been–sometimes even with some joking comment about gluttony. (If we joke about it then it’s not true, right?) Christians even have jokes about eating too much at church like “What’s another name for a Baptist preacher’s belt? A fence around a chicken graveyard.” But I wonder how many people have serious issues with overeating that are swept under the rug with humor instead or being discussed with the same seriousness as alcoholism or pornography.

How many church leaders (both paid and volunteer) are workaholics? Is this behavior any less destructive for them and their families than any other addiction? Is the Church doing a great disservice to its leaders and its members by brushing off certain issues as normal behavior instead of challenging and correcting them? How can we focus on things that are ultimately important instead of being distracted by things that end up being trivial?

Failure is being excellent at something that is ultimately not important.