Why do you want to get more done? Most of us skip that question. We buy the planner, try the app, guard our mornings and assume the reason is obvious. Reagan Rose thinks the reason matters more than the method.
Rose, a Bible teacher, writes and speaks about personal productivity from a Christian point of view at Redeeming Productivity, where he also hosts The Redeeming Productivity Show. While researching video game addiction for a book, he noticed something surprising: people who can’t stop gaming are usually not short on drive at all. Their motivation is real; it has simply attached itself to the wrong reward. That raises a question for every Christian with a calendar: which reward is shaping how you spend your week?
In this short article, Rose names four rewards that compete for that place: money, a sense of calm and control, the approval of the people around you, and the hope of being remembered well. None of them looks dangerous. Some even look like faithfulness from the outside, like staying late to clean up after a church event. That is exactly why they’re worth noticing. Even the longing for peace, he argues, can quietly become an idol when it pushes aside the peace you already have through faith in Jesus.
His answer isn’t to care less about productivity. It’s to measure your work against eternity rather than against what it earns you in this life, and to care more about how God will one day assess your life than about what people think of it.
Ministry offers plenty of chances to be seen, so read this one for yourself first. Then talk it through with your leadership team: why do we do what we do? Parts of the article are adapted from Rose’s book Redeeming Productivity: Getting More Done for the Glory of God.
More from Pulse
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- Why the Best Burn Out: Idealism and the Trap of Self-Sacrifice
This article by Reagan Rose first appeared on Redeeming Productivity. Pulse published a German version in March 2026 (in German).
