Man of Depravity - Tyler Braun's posts on Church Ministry, Worship, Seminary, and Theology.

Slow Down

2010 June 03

by Tyler

A few months into my new role of leading worship for students as well as leading the band for Sunday mornings at Sunset I knew I had to change the way I was doing my day to day living.

I was exhausted. And in many ways I still am. But some of the changes I made with the intention of slowing down my life in some small ways have made a big difference.

A few weeks back I listened to this TED talk on slowing down and it reminded me of the importance of being intentional with slowing down. Hope you enjoy it (come watch here RSS readers):

Even you as my blog readers have noticed one way I’ve slowed down. I no longer post everyday and have focused more on posting when I have something to say rather than because I wanted to post everyday. It has been freeing and has freed up a few hours of my time here and there. I’ve also been much more intentional about unplugging from social media at different parts during each day.

Something about the culture most of us live in says that success is doing a lot.

But I think each of us needs to slow down more often.

Filed under: the rest...

http://www.benlemery.com Ben

I am not sure what to take away from this. That slow sex is better(which I know nothing about) or that slowing down so that life can happen is better.

=P

Good thoughts for the unmarried. haha.
http://www.manofdepravity.com Tyler

That wasn’t really the part I liked in his talk the best, sorry if it distracted from the overall point.
http://www.benlemery.com Ben

I am just being a smart alic.
http://www.daveingland.com Dave Ingland

After seeing Ben’s comment on the video, I’m just gonna reply to your written thoughts A very mature perspective Tyler! It’s easy to get caught up in what we think we need to do, but in the end, we will lose sight of God and the important things in life is we don’t intentionally change our ways and slow down. As it is written, “Be still and know I am God.”
http://www.danceswithklingons.wordpress.com Steven

As a school bus driver, I was trained to go 5 MPH below the speed limits. By going slower, I have to wait at red lights less, I save fuel and my breaks by not having to stop and it saves my energy.

Slowing down doesn’t mean stopping or taking a long time to do something, but to take a quieter pace than how the rest of the world is going.

I slowed down last night at bed time and read the first chapter of The Voyage of The Dawn Treader out loud to my three daughters. Was a whole lot of fun to just read out loud to them, and we spent some quiet time with each other.

Slowing down is what we all need to do. As for the sex thing, NO COMMENT.
http://www.numptard.com Diane

I think admitting that you need to slow down is an honourable stance to take. I really wish this was something that was talked about in churches more – intentional stillness is very different from idle moments. We can be idle but not really resting, and I think that most people have forgotten what it means to be at rest without distraction.

We’re so driven (sometimes by our leaders) to serve, to do…while this is necessary, it’s not meant to be at the detriment of our spiritual health. We get so busy doing & thinking it’s for the Kingdom, that we don’t clear the white noise enough for God to actually speak to us.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Thanks for posting this, Tyler, it helps to crystallise a few things.
http://www.nicolewick.com @nicolewick

I totally, 100% agree with this post. I made some similar changes a few weeks ago. I was killing myself trying to produce content. I decided to blog shorter posts with more frequency. It’s working well for me and I’m glad I did it. It’s all about balance.

I posted my thoughts about this topic here: http://www.nicolewick.com/2010/05/stopping-the-madness/

I’m glad your finding what works for you. You have great content here and I’d hate for you to burn out on it.
http://denisedilley.blogspot.com Denise

I didn’t watch the video, but I definitely agree that slowing down is a good idea. Since I’m finally finished with school I’m actually able to slow down, but I also find myself wanting to add thigs to my life to keep me busy. It’s crazy.