Your weekly roundup of insights and resources to help you get more done for the glory of God.
In Today’s Issue:
- Overcoming Spiritual Laziness
- How to Write a Sermon in 8 Hours or Less
- College Students Can’t Read Books
- Recommended: Anti-Porn App
- Quote: John Owen on Killing Sin
Dear steward,
Hope your Thursday is off to a great start!
I’ve had my head down this month working on a massive update to the Redeeming Productivity Academy coursework. I’m excited to tell you more in the coming weeks as it develops more. But here’s a little teaser in the meantime.

I forgot how much I enjoy these seasons of intense work on a single project. There’s just something so pleasurable, and I think God-honoring, about blocking off the calendar and obsessing over making something just right.
I’m convinced that it’s in periods of focused work that we experience how work was originally supposed to be, before the fall and the curse. The kind of frazzled, half-distracted fog that characterizes so much of modern work is simply unnatural.
Created in the image of our creator God, we long to create something that is good. Something we can stand back and look at and say, I made that. But we’ve got to fight through the sea of distractions to carve out time to do that kind of work.
But it’s worth the battle.
THE ROUNDUP
The best links I found this week
Overcoming Spiritual Laziness (6 mins)
John Piper / Desiring God

I really enjoyed this one from Piper. Our motivations matter to God.
God’s will is not simply that we do the right thing but that we do it with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.
P.S. I’ve actually been thinking of doing a book on motivation, addressing topics like laziness, ambition, and productivity from the Scriptures (I kind of like the sound of Redeeming Motivation, what do you think?)
How to Write a Faithful Sermon in Eight Hours or Less (5 mins)
David Kaywood / Pastors & Productivity

Here’s one for the pastors from my friend David’s excellent newsletter, Pastor’s & Productivity.
As a preacher, I’m sure you desire to feed your flock faithfully. But one hurdle to weekly preaching is the preparation time a good sermon takes. You don’t want to compromise expositional faithfulness for the sake of spending less time in sermon preparation, but more time in sermon preparation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll produce a better sermon. Where do you turn?
The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books (9 mins)
Rose Horowitch / The Atlantic

This is a disturbing, if not unsurprising, trend. Even at elite universities many students are coming in as freshmen never having read a book cover-to-cover in their entire life!
Phones are partially to blame, but the author spends most of her time looking at trends in middle and high schools which have placed less emphasis on reading entire works.
I share this one because Christians have to push back against the decline of reading. Christianity is a religion that God has revealed to us in a book. Moreover, so many great teachings on that book are locked away in other books. A diet of TikTok and YouTube, will never get you to the depth that reading will. We’ve got to discipline ourselves to be readers. It is a stewardship of the mind.
SOMETHING I LIKE
Covenant Eyes
Porn is a massive problem, even within the church. And I’m convinced that for many believers, it’s the thing stopping them from leading the productive, God-honoring life the Lord intends for them. If you’re looking for help gaining victory in this area, I recommend Covenant Eyes.
They’ve helped over 1.7 million people experience victory over porn. The key is the combination of blocking software and tools to help you stay accountable to others. Covenant Eyes makes both of these things simple, and gives you a clear path toward mortifying this pattern of sin for good.
WHATS NEW ON
Redeeming Productivity
Routines vs. Goals: Keeping the Machine Running (6 mins)

When you decide to focus on a goal in one area of life, a common challenge arises: how do you maintain progress in other areas?
Read, Listen, or watch on YouTube.
A DOSE OF WISDOM
Quote of the Week
“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
John Owen
FINAL WORD
Thanks for reading!
I pray you have a great week, getting things done for the glory of God!
P.S. Have you checked out our Christian Productivity Planner for Notion?
Reagan Rose
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