One easy way to create more time for solitude, meditation and prayer

Ministry is hectic. Most people serving in ministry have other things in their lives going on besides church. It is hard enough to carve out time to actually be at the ministry event and find the time to prepare for it. If we are honest, our time for spiritual disciplines is what gets lost when we are busy. And who of us is not busy.

But the energy and power we need for ministry is found in exactly those disciplines. If we are really serving people, then we need to be responsible to those habits which actually affect our ministry. So here is one easy way we can gain some time for solitude, meditation and prayer:

Reduce your screen time

The US Census reported most adults and teens “will spend nearly five months (3,518 hours) next year watching television, surfing the Internet, reading daily newspapers and listening to personal music devices.”

My wife and I are totally guilty of this — our laptops are always open. Like you, our habit is to watch TV in order to relax. Now, I am not saying get rid of TV or your laptop because I am certainly not going to do that — but see if we can watch 30 minutes less screen time every day. We will lose 8 days screen time a year; and gain 30 minutes a day for solitude, meditation and prayer.

That seems like a good trade…