Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.62LIKELY
Sadness
0.47UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.44UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.51LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.35UNLIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.97LIKELY
Extraversion
0.08UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.83LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.6LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction (5m)
My Lent experience of unbusyness
One Lent - I am not busy.
Started by Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.
Plenty of ideas on website and in books.
Even a bracelet to remind you.
Core idea — to spend 10-30 minutes every day during Lent doing nothing.
First two days, at WBC. Easy.
Came back early from studying, spent 1⁄2 hour drinking tea, looking out of the window.
Then I came home.
I don’t think I did that again for the remainder of Lent.
Some people — including many Christians - would wear that as a badge of honour
So busy, so important, I don’t have time to sit and drink a mug of tea.
I have learned to wear it like a badge of shame.
With shame I admit to often thinking: Never enough time.
I need time to: Worship.
Work.
Rest.
Play.
I need to spend time with God.
I need time to study.
I need time to prepare sermons.
I need time to provide pastoral care.
I need time to love Gail.
Ashamedly, I often think there is never quite enough time.
I think this is the most dangerous lie of our age:
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence . . .
activism and overwork.
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence....
It kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
(Thomas Merton, American Trappist Monk and writer).
Do you feel as if you're in a blizzard?
I know I can see this violence in me.
I know exactly what it looks like when I’m overworked and overwrought.
Many of you have noticed it in me too.
Ask you in love: Are you as good at noticing it in you?
Do you feel frustrated by time?
Do you often feel rushed?
Do you feel like you never have enough time for: Work.
Leisure.
Family and Friends.
Ministry?
Do you ever complain: If only there were more hours in the day/days in the week?
I really wish I could have some time off?
If I had more time then I would study the Bible and pray more?
Do you grumble about being overtired and overworked?
Do you feel as if you’re in a blizzard?
With nothing to hold on to?
The seven signs of busyness
Even now, some of you may be denying it.
But because God is challenging me about it, I can see it all around me too.
So for the busy deniers out there, here are seven signs Alli Worthington suggests are warning signs you may be too busy.
I see some of them in my own life.
You may recognise them too:
1.
An inability to control your emotions.
You get irritated by people.
You think people don’t get how busy you are.
You work yourself into an anxious, angry mess.
2. Lack of self care.
You skip your shower in the morning because you have too much to do.
You make a chocolate bar and coffee your main meal, because you don’t have time to cook.
You spend hours on Facebook admiring other people’s lives instead of investing in your self care.
3. Illness.
You can’t get well.
You have a constant cold or infection.
Or in pain.
If you can’t sleep, you get up and do housework or sit at the computer and compound the problem further.
Illness can be a warning sign that you need to make changes in your life.
4. Chronic Lateness.
Caused by tendency to say yes to too many activities and people.
You cannot be all things to all people.
Some of us act as if the world would end if we were not here to keep it going.
And the dangerous thing is we suck other people into it too.
They end up saying yes to us out of obligation or guilt instead of genuine desire.
5. Self-medicating and excess.
You know where this (stomach) comes from?
It comes from self-medicating my stress.
That might not be your self- medication, but it’s mine.
Yours might be spending too many hours on social media or watching too much television instead of sleeping.
Most dangerously, I can think of examples of people who use work/ ministry as their self-medication.
That’s a vicious, violent cycle.
6. Neglecting important relationships.
If you are habitually letting down those closest to you — spouse, family, close friends, then you’re over capacity.
7. Neglecting God.
J was busy.
But he never overlooked spending time reconnecting with his Father.
He left cities with people unhealed, prayers unprayed and work undone, so that he could spend time with God.
If you’re skipping time with the Bible, in prayer, then that’s a huge sign you’re over capacity.
Neglecting God out of busyness is a symptom that you are off balance.
The inadequacy of our ropes
Of course, we try to salvage our relationship with God.
We do all the things we were taught to do.
We have devotions.
We have a quiet time.
We spend time reading the Bible, praying, reading a devotional book.
We spend time here in worship on a Sunday.
And we hope all this will help us withstand the blizzard.
You know what I’ve learned?
It doesn’t.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9