Abiding Overachieving: A Leader’s Reframe

Blog by Alan Fadling

1. The Fruitless Cost of Busyness

I’ve been recommending a more unhurried way of living and leading for years now. And I still cross paths with leaders who are drawn to this message but who carry a common concern: Will I still get things done? To be fair, I’ve wrestled with that question myself. But as I lean into the unhurried way of Jesus as I’ve come to understand it, I’ve come to believe that we often confuse busyness with fruitfulness—and in doing so, we miss the deeper invitation of Jesus.

2. What If Unhurried Work Is More Fruitful?

I wrote about this concern in An Unhurried Life in a chapter titled “Productivity: Unhurried Isn’t Lazy.” But some still hear the language of “unhurried” and can’t help assessing it as not quite productive enough.

In today’s article, and in a follow-up to it in a couple of weeks, I’ll share some insights from John 15 and from the writings of Wendell Berry that have helped me in this area. I want to help you envision an unhurried way of productivity that is also more sustainable. A way of productivity that is rooted not in frantic effort but in abiding presence and fruit that truly lasts.

Here's one conviction I’ve come to: We often radically overestimate the lasting value of busyness. Haven’t you ever gotten to the end of a busy day, a busy week, or a busy season and wondered if anything you did actually mattered in the end? That’s another way of asking, “Is what I’m busy doing going to have a lasting impact?”

3. Remaining in the Vine

Jesus seems to speak to this in a well-known Upper Room passage about a vine and its branches in John 15. Listen to these familiar sentences in view of our theme of work productivity:

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (verse 4)

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (verse 5)

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. (verse 16)

Jesus is saying that it is impossible to be fruitful on our own. Only a life lived and work done in communion with Jesus is going to be eternally fruitful by the measure of God’s kingdom values. Apart from the vine, a branch withers. In the vine, the branch flourishes. It’s quite possible to be busy apart from Jesus, but it is absolutely impossible to be fruitful apart from him. And sometimes, it is exactly our busyness that is keeping us disconnected from Jesus.

4. Learning to Farm Like a Pastor

One source of encouragement in this way of thinking about kingdom productivity has come to me (and to many) from an unexpected source. I remember years ago reading Eugene Peterson and hearing him talk about one of his favorite authors, a Kentucky farmer and poet by the name of Wendell Berry. Berry writes a lot about sustainable farming in contrast to the decades-long trend toward the more mechanical, mass production orientation in farming we might call agribusiness.

Peterson basically says that as we read Berry’s writings, whenever Berry says “farmer,” we could think “pastor” instead. Whenever he says “farm,” we could think “church” or “ministry.” And you don’t have to be a religious leader to benefit from Berry’s wisdom. As I began reading Berry’s writing, this framework helped me hear his farming wisdom in my work life. It gave me a vision for productivity that was more organic and less like an assembly line.

I could share pages of quotations from Berry’s writings that have helped me. I have a library shelf full of his books. Instead, I’ve chosen one book titled Bringing It to the Table, which is a collection of essays subtitled “On Farming and Food.” I could recommend many of his other books, but this is a fine one to get a taste for his message, his values, and his priorities.

Let me share some lines from these essays and reflect aloud on the intersections I see between his vision of sustainable productivity and what I’m calling kingdom fruitfulness.

In this passage, Berry talks about the hidden costs of a certain sort of agricultural productivity: “We have been winning, to our inestimable loss, a competition against our own land and our own people. At present, what we have to show for this ‘victory’ is a surplus of food. But this is a surplus achieved by the ruin of its sources.”*

Berry’s point is this: High output from an industrial approach to farming has often come at the cost of ruining the land itself. The land needs increasing industrial inputs to keep up those levels of output.

In contrast, a more organic approach to farming allows the land to remain as healthy as it was before the planting—or even become more productive over time.

Do you see the parallel with our sometimes mass-production approach to our work? In my case, having worked in the field of ministry, we may celebrate rapid numerical growth, but we rarely hear about volunteer turnover or staff burnout that may be quietly fueling that growth. I hear those stories on the other end. I’ve seen more emergency sabbaticals in the past five years than in the previous two decades. Some leaders are profoundly weary.

Now, let me be clear: I’m not saying that all large ministries are automatically unwell. These dynamics show up in organizations of every size. And every ministry can do well, and can do better, regardless of its size.

When Jesus talks about productivity in John 15, he speaks of both quantity and quality: bearing much fruit and bearing fruit that will last. Kingdom productivity grows in quantity because of its quality. That’s how the early church grew. It’s hard to locate a strategic plan among those early church leaders. The church grew because they cultivated a contagious way of life. Their fruitfulness looked far more like an organic farm than a manufacturing plant.

In two weeks, I’ll continue sharing insights I’ve gained from Wendell Berry’s writings.

For Reflection:

• Where in my life am I mistaking busyness for fruitfulness?
• What practices help me remain connected to the Vine—especially in seasons of high output?
• What kind of fruit am I bearing—and will it last?

*Wendell Berry, Bringing It to the Table (Counterpoint Press, 2009), p. 5.