Book Review: The Busy Christians guide to busyness.

This is the third in my trilogy of book reviews, it is actually the book I read first but have decided to review last.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to actually do this review, for reasons that might become clear as you read the review, but as I have made a decision to generally review books then I ought to be consistent.

This book, The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness by Tim Chester, was recommended reading at a conference I was at in November, so I ordered it there, and also came as recommended reading for an Administrators Training course I am undertaking at the moment, although for the life of me I don’t know why they recommended it!

The book isn’t what the title might lead you to expect, it isn’t about how to organise your life and workflow to achieve things and reduce your stress load.

Whereas this book has a lot of very good points I did find the author extremely judgemental in his attitude, essentially implying that anyone who is over work is because they have a desire to feel important and needed, this simply is NOT the case!

In one section the author suggests that in the UK there is no excuse for anyone to be working more than 48 Hours as there is legislation that prevents employers from forcing you to work more than that, whereas he is correct to say there is such legislation in place he is pretty naive if he believes this is effective in allowing people free choice about working over that number of hours, currently it is possible for you to sign away your rights to a maximum 48 Hour week by writing a letter to that effect and my experience, which is not uncommon, was that I was given a letter to sign my rights away along with my contract of employment, unsigned at this point, on starting a new job, the clear inference, you sign away your rights or you don’t stay!

Also, the author suggests that the fact that people have to work long hours to keep things running suggests that they don’t have enough faith in God, this again is simply untrue, I used to be a Transport Manager and in a very cut throat business, in order to make the transport department profitable we had to operate with the bare minimum of staff in the office, this meant that we ALL had to work jolly hard to make sure that things kept running and we all, including the drivers working for us, remained in a job. For me, as a Christian, to have suggested that I wasn’t going to pull my own weight as I was going to trust God for the results would have been a rather ineffective witness to the people who I worked with.

I had, at some points, the livelihood of up to 40 staff in my responsibility and it wasn’t showing a lack of faith in God, or me wanting to ‘be their saviour’ as he suggests in another part of his book, that kept me working hard and long.

Now, I work in a much less pressured job, having been able to take a lower paid job, as a necessity as we have 2 children with disability, but the main reason why I have been able to make this move is because we have addition benefits, around the fact that they are adopted, which help to replace the income I have lost.

To suggest that others could do the same is pretty naive as finances are not exactly favourable when you take such a drastic pay cut! And it’s not about having to downsize and live in a smaller house, go for a cheaper car and do away with the 2 foreign holidays a year, we have none of those although the house we live in is a very expensive one it is a bungalow and barely meets the needs of our family, we have had to move into a poorer area to find something that we can afford that meets our needs, and even so are sinking huge amounts each month into a mortgage, so don’t even suggest that people can make do with a smaller house etc we certainly cold NOT afford the very basic level of standard of living we have currently had it not been for the sizeable adoption allowances we receive, I would therefore have been stuck in a senior management role that created a huge amount of stress and work, this is the reality for millions of people in the UK.

Also, the author suggests at another point that it might be better for people to downsize as a way of being able to reach out into needy areas of society but this is to suggest that the rich and well off don’t need Christ!

I had a very good friend who was a multi millionaire, worked very hard and had a very strong faith, would trust God for anything, sadly no longer with us as he has gone to glory, thanks to Cancer, but anyhow, he had such a huge impact on the business community and the fact that there were several hundred people, many from the business world, most of whom were extremely well off self made people, at his funeral, is a testimony to the way in which he reached into the higher levels of society, I know that he was responsible for some pretty influential people coming to know the Lord, to suggest to him that he should downsize and make do with less would be to take him out of his very strong sphere of influence, where he was able to do so much good.

Anyhow, there are my main thoughts on this book, it was interesting to read and there are some good bits but these are clouded by the judgmental attitude that comes across so strongly in the book, that comes from someone who, from what I have been able to find out about him, has spent most of his life in academic circles, in a very privileged situation and doesn’t have to live in the real world, never mind the fact that he is also earning significant amounts of money so is not in a good position to suggest that people are not as hard up as they make out to be or that they don’t have to work long hours to make ends meet or achieve even a basic standard of living.

So, in short, I am not sure why this book is recommended reading, I have read it and would suggest that you don’t bother wasting your money, and time, on it.

If anyone wants to know why most of my book reviews are positive, its because generally I choose books that I am fairly certain I will enjoy, this was the exception as it was recomended reading from a course so I had to read it really.

Of course, as always, people have a right to reply so if yuo have a different view/experience/understanding of the book feel free to comment on it here.

[houdini]