One of the best sessions of the whole conference was Wednesday night when Iain Murray spoke to us about "Our Present Needs." What's funny is that I missed most of this talk, but managed to get in right when I needed to (aka when the Lord wanted me to...). I came in right on his third point: "Our Need for Guidance on the Best Use of Our Time". Here he gave six timely points of application that all ministers should heed:

1. Take a day per month or a few days a year to examine our lives closely in light of eternity.
2. Watch your temperament. If you love being locked away in your study, then you should get out more and visit people. If you love being out and about you should probably be in your study more often.
3. Read the best books and only the best books. When you do have a pencil in hand and devise some system of recall for future needs.
4. Don't let emails and websites control your priorities. It is amazing just how much time is lost when we sit down first thing in the morning and catch up on emails or the latests blogs and news. Prioritize your time accordingly.
5. Avoid spending and losing too much time on controversies. Sometimes it is necessary to invest a lot of time on these, but most times it is not.
6. Do not "see" in your churches what you cannot change. Lots of times in our churches there are things we would like to see changed but we just cannot change them. Sometimes you just have to ignore such things. Tackling a disputable yet unchangeable matter can disrupt and destroy a church.

This is timely and wise advice from a man with much experience. For me, I know that number 4 hit the hardest. I can spend so much time checking news websites, facebook, and other blogs and then catch myself surprised when an hour or more has passed by before I know it. Surely there is some benefit in checking those things, but I know I need to moderate my time more when doing so.