Noel posted an entry yesterday on his blog that reminded me of something, I have a website. Yes, sometimes I forget. I would like to apologize in the form of several posts (starting tomorrow morning) covering recent Riverview sets that I never quite got around to explaining on here.

I spoke briefly on the idea of prioritizing in my previous post. On the same general topic, here is an excerpt from Herman Bavinck’s The Origin, Essence and Purpose of Man in which Bavinck speaks to man’s nature and purpose as he was created by God:

Work which is really work cannot have its end and final purpose in itself but always has as its further objective to bring something into being. It ceases when that objective has been reached. To work, simply to work, without deliberation, plan, or purpose, is to work hopelessly and is unworthy of rational man. A development which continues indefinitely is not a development. Development implies intention, course of action, final purpose, destination. If, then, man at his creation was called to work, that implies that he himself and the people who should issue from him should enter into a rest after the work.

Beyond determining priorities, I need to be sure that I am keeping the bigger picture in mind. I must identify the purpose of the work I have before me and consider systems or procedures to make those tasks most fruitful. Part of any task is creating a plan to complete the work and ultimately understand that rest is an essential part of the process. In the technologically connected culture we are in, how does rest really work? Especially in my situation, how can I use my times of rest most effectively and use the time I have with my family to their greatest potential?

I find myself, on occasion, with more concurrent projects at work than I know how to reasonably handle. It may be safe to say that we all encounter this situation from time to time. The issue here is this: By the time I have realized there’s a bit too much on my proverbial plate, I don’t have much time to sit down and form a plan of attack. It doesn’t help that I may get a call at any moment saying something has gone terribly wrong and it is “top priority.”

I’m sure there are hundreds if not thousands of books on prioritizing and generally fixing your workload but to read one I’d need a strong recommendation and some time (which I have precious little of.) To get things started, I’m thinking about working out my schedule for the day every morning when I get to work. That should be a good starting point… right?

You’re overdue for an update. I have been spending some time in San Francisco.

Photos are available on my Flickr photostream.

The ACME Anvil Co. series at Riverview is coming to a close so I thought it was about time I get the build information up…

The series “ACME Anvil Co.” is about weights, things that slow us down from going all out for Jesus.

What we did: The set is comprised of shipping crates made from disassembled pallets and some new materials. We were able to round up about 4 dozen pallets over a period of a month prior to the beginning of the series. Pallets are made to be structurally sound so taking them apart perhaps wasn’t the best idea but the alternative was spending a lot of money to get all-new materials.

There were tons of folks that got involved in this build and a handful of companies that donated materials. It has been great to have the help from people around Riverview grow as we continue to do more aggressive sets.

We put some 4×4 legs on the drum riser and ’skirted’ it with pallet materials. One crate was hung stage right and a replica anvil was made and set on one of the crates. Kristie made two stencils that we used to spray the logo on the crates. Five additional crates were constructed for our other venue.

Tomorrow we’re transitioning to our new set for the next series.