You ever been on a job where looking busy was more important than actually accomplishing anything? Many of us at times have succumbed to the temptation to simply look like we were doing something rather than actually doing something. Those of us in the internet world know about spending time on facebook or checking our email versus actually writing the next article and/or recording the next audio. Busywork is a codeword for working but doing nothing. It is a hidden waste of time in that you are doing something, but you accomplish nothing.

Peter Mead’s Take on the Subject

Over at the Biblical Preaching website, Peter Mead gives the story of a preacher who took a lot of time to say nothing. He wrote:

The bottom line? This preacher had taken a long time to say nothing. Sort of a safari through Scripture making passing observations about families in the Bible (“Oh look! There’s another one!”). A great opportunity, but he’d essentially just filled time.

Here was a preacher who had nothing to say, and yet he still decided to get up there and say nothing. What a tragedy. The people have come needing a word of hope and truth and have received a preacher’s busywork. Now I do not think this preacher was a preacher in the African American tradition, but if it were, this preacher may have simply tacked on a whoop at the end or started shouting and left the people with an empty high.

Make Sure You Are Saying Something

This weekend you are to preach. Read over your sermon, make sure you are saying something worthy of the name Christian Preacher. Make sure that the bread of life comes warm from the kitchen of heaven. Never fall into the trap of simply “being there” because the pulpit is no place for mere “busywork.”