Archive for month: January, 2019

By Thomas White, Student at Living Ed – Charlotte

“We do have a biblical mandate to develop wisdom, to develop understanding, to develop discretion, knowledge. …we should be watching, learning from what happens around us.” ~ Mr. Jonathan McNair

The concept of “News” has been around almost as long as humanity itself. Things have always happened, and people have almost always had to be told, so news isn’t new. But our access to it certainly is. Now we have podcasts, more websites than we can possibly keep track of, scores of television channels, radio stations, that one uncle who always seems to know what’s going on, and newspapers for the traditionalists among us. The vast number of available news sources can ironically make it more overwhelming to keep up with the world’s endless shenanigans, at least for me. Fortunately, Mr. Jonathan McNair’s Assembly this week offered ways to manage the myriad of news sources clamoring for our attention, in order to minimize the risk of being misled and focus our attention upon “good news.”

“…the system is geared to get our attention, to catch our eye, to make scoops, and it’s not from God’s perspective.”

If news is coming from humans, which it pretty often the case, then news is biased. As God’s people, our task is to recognize its biases, and that all sources of worldly news have a slant. This being the case, we should always know the source of the news we keep up on, and consider the perspective of that source. Doing so enables us to read or listen with an awareness of the source’s bias. Even a largely fact-oriented source is based on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and as such, it’s going to contain just that: good and evil. Bits of both.  As Mr. McNair pointed out, we should seek the most credible and objective news sources we can find (that one uncle probably isn’t the safest bet), but accept that none of them will give us the unvarnished truth every time. It’s tempting to just trust “conservative” sources and shun “liberal” ones, but is that really exercising discernment? Would Satan let it be that easy?

“We are not involved in politics, so be careful where you stand. Even though you don’t vote, even though you may not go to the ballot box, you can still be political in your perspective if you’re not careful.”

We’re also humans (crazy, right?), so we’re also biased. That’s unavoidable, so Mr. McNair suggested that we need to understand ourselves and recognize what our biases are, and why we have them. The most dangerous sources of “news” are out to manipulate rather than inform, and knowing where we are biased can protect us from having our emotions played with by certain topics. As Mr. McNair pointed out, we all need to be looking for God’s perspective, not remaining content with our own, so it would probably be wise to ask members of God’s ministry where they get their news from, and what they’ve noticed about those sources. Understanding our own perspectives, thinking critically about our sources of news, and keeping God’s greater plan at the forefront of our minds can help us to “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

By Thomas White, Student at Living Education-Charlotte

“You know, God gives us a certain amount of time. … We all know that it’s a resource that, once it’s gone, you can’t get back.” ~ Mr. DeSimone

Students everywhere will tell you that there always seems to be just slightly too much to get done, and just slightly too little time in which to do it. This week’s assembly was focused on minimizing that problem, as Mr. Mike DeSimone related three fundamentals to working effectively and efficiently. The first, naturally, is time management, which is simply the process by which we do the best we can with the minutes we have, not wasting any of the time God has gifted to us. This involves consciously tracking our time, and actively considering how we spend it. If we rely solely on our memories, which are often almost as deceptive as our hearts, we will never have an accurate perception of how our time is truly spent. As Ephesians 5:15-16 instructs, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” In order to “redeem” our time, we have to know what we are redeeming it from, and making the effort to record the length of our daily activities is a solid way to find this out.

“…I’ll work on both [tasks] at the same time…Or…get one done more effectively, more efficiently…then I’ll get done the second task…more effectively, more efficiently, more accurately.”

Proverbs 22:29 reads, “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before unknown men.” An effective way to meet some unknown men, then, is to multitask, because multitasking is really only “switch-tasking,” and it’s both ineffective and inefficient. We can’t actually multitask; it’s an exceptionally rare person who can genuinely do two things at once. Most people who think that they’re multitasking are simply switching from one unfinished task to another, over and over, and spending very little time actually focusing on one objective. Switch-tasking only ensures that one is putting halfhearted effort into two things, and therefore taking twice as long to accomplish either one. I often find that while I might not be switch-tasking in a literal sense, I’m switch-tasking in my mind, mulling over an entirely unrelated problem or goal when I should be focused upon the task at hand. In what ways can we improve our focus, as students, employees, or even spiritual warriors, so that we may excel in our work?

 “…getting rid of waste…getting rid of things you don’t need, and…bringing things in so that you can work most effectively. …really, it comes down to organization.”

Often, being productive leans pretty heavily upon being organized. Organization is not so much an inherent character trait as it is the putting into practice of what manufacturers call “Lean 5S”: Sort, Set (in order), Shine (clean), Standardize, and Sustain. Organizing a daunting task into ordered, manageable chunks can reduce mistakes, improve focus, and increase productivity by giving one the confidence to actually make progress. Even in our spiritual lives, sorting through individual problems we need to overcome can often yield more fruit than thinking, “I have to reach perfect purity, and I have to reach it yesterday.”  We can all probably be more efficient and effective in everything we do, whether our tasks are physical or spiritual in nature, so it’s worth the effort to think about how we can better organize each part of the work set before us.

Books mentioned:

The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker