Spare cycles... for God?

I was reading this article today and it got me thinking...

We human beings have so much untapped potential. The aforementioned article explored the concept of boredom and the latent productivity of the human race. Basically, we have much more free time than we'd like to admit and we fill this free time with everything from entertainment, movies, video games, hobbies, staring at the wall... you get the point.

Just look at the vast amount of information and resources available on the internet. Web 2.0 is all about collaboration. Most of the people who blog, manage Wikipedia, contribute to myspace and Youtube are all volunteers. Their doing it for free.

What if we took our "spare cycles" - our spare time - and used it to further the Kingdom of God? I'm not knocking down-time, it's incredibly important to us all. But if I was honest with myself, I would say that I have too much free time.

What if we as Christians collectively collaborated to further the kingdom of God with the time in our margins? What would happen when millions of Christians took 5-10 minutes a day to spread the love of God? A word of encouragement to the lady at the store, a helpful hand to the neighbor next door, a hug to a friend in need, a quick call to an old friend. All of these things don't take more than a few moments, but combined we could make a real impact.

The point of using spare cycles for God isn't to be busier. It's about stewardship. What are we doing with our time? Do we really need to watch 3 hours of TV a day? Do we really need to see 3 movies a week? Do we really need to spend all of our free time doing things that merely entertain us? What if we all gave a little? Imagine the possibilities.