Let me narrow the context a bit. Family. What if time with your family weren't straddling the line between Qualitative and Quantitative? What if being a family on mission together weren't simply a programmed event for small group nights or once a year service projects with the Church raking leaves and digging ditches...
When we view life and ministry this way (either vocational ministry or volunteer) we unnecessarily live in a Quantity/Quality paradigm. In this world we give our families limited time and in that time we exhaust ourselves by giving them every spare minute of that day both at home and with Quality special events while your home. You miss out on the normal flow of your kids moods, attention spans, schedule because you're cramming them into your day off. You miss out on a regular rhythm with your wife because you're both focused on having one really good day together with and for the kids.
I know we're single parents and work a ton just to stay alive. I know we have busy seasons at school, at work, in our personal lives. I know there are plenty of exceptions and let's be honest, most of them are attributed to our brokenness: divorce, greed, lust for more, dissatisfaction, proving ourselves, feeling valuable, false sense of peace and satisfaction, consumer culture, misunderstanding of the nature of the Body of Christ etc. Some of these things will carry effects that may not free us in this lifetime to truly wrestle with Quality/Quantity, our lot is cast. But let's not let that define a healthy paradigm for everyone who is able to model and impact the coming generations of the Church, our kids!
You and I have the ability to define Quantity and Quality time with our framilies (thanks Sprint). We can create a lifestyle that actually assumes that Gods directives in Deut. 6 were/are true and real and still effectual. That what Paul coaches Titus in regarding the older generations teaching the younger (Titus 2) that these things are daily, that they are true, that they happen in the course of life in real time, not in programs and explosive moments.
We can say that Quality time with our family looks like both the special meals, trips to the zoo and yearly vacations as well as having dinner with our family nightly. That Quantity isn't simply one single 24/hr. period in our week but is spread about with normal moments of reading the paper while our kids play, putting them down for naps, hanging out with our disciples over coffee and orange juice and neighborhood bbq's and outreach together on mission as a family.
Maybe as Bob Goff recommends, just do away with your minute by minute scheduling and make yourself available. Just be available and be available both for and with your families.
Why not do more life (ministry) out of your house? Why separate ministry and life or worse, define them inappropriately one-sided? Why not be home and share your home (family, friends, couches and food) with more people alongside your wife? Why not let your kids see how you function daily, weaknesses and strengths and struggles instead of putting on a mediocre show once a week for them. Why not love your spouse by running the race with her/him instead of practically living as single parents, bachelors and the like 6 days a week. Is that what it means to sacrifice for the Kingdom?
Why does it have to be one or the other? I understand that for those who don't know Christ there is no tomorrow should they not wake up and this is cause for movement. I understand that we're called to make disciples and that this call is with power and might and action oriented. That the time for disciplemaking is now and not later. But He is in control of that right?
But I also understand that you and I have chosen marriage and families and so must honor these relationships not just in theological theory but in practical affection. I understand that a family on mission will display the very love of God that Christ promises as the Church is truly united one framily at a time. Are non-Christians truly clamoring to get involved in the church in order that they might get really, really busy and burned out? Probably not. But no matter how much doubt, pain and dysfunction might surround you in your neighborhood, a loving and inviting framily actually doing life in Christ together will be much more inviting than, well than that Easter concert you're spending all your evenings on, even that really sweet small group your leading.
I know culture moves fast and entrepreneurship is praised and prized. I know everyone is always connected. I know our comments move at lightening speed and technology is bolstering our connectedness...I know.
I know that speed, that quick decisions, that lots of money, that big enterprises, aggressive leadership (but humble...), that pop culture, that consumerism, that short attention spans...that all of these things are culturally sought after both in and outside of the church.
But what if.
It isn't Quality over Quantity. It's both. It's Qualantity...It's both on purpose and with purpose. And it's so good.