Reading Habits
Fairly often I receive questions about my reading habits. This week I received an email that stated/asked:
I am impressed by how much time you, as a pastor, spend reading. Do you have any general guidelines about how much time you spend studying?
I thought this might be helpful to a wider audience, so here’s how I answered the email:
Thanks for your email.
I don’t know how much time I spend reading and I don’t have any big guideline suggestions.
For me, I simply love to read. I love to learn. I let curiosity/pleasure guide my reading. If I’m curious about a certain area of doctrine, I read about it. If I’m curious about a certain figure from church history or about the geography of Alaska, I read about it and ask other people about it.
So, reading isn’t a chore or a scheduled thing for me, it’s just an easy joy. The more I learn about God and this world he’s made us the more my capacity to enjoy God grows, so I keep reading.
I tend to always have a book with me and so I make time for reading when waiting in lines, in between meetings, etc.
Hope some of this helps.
The book, How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler was helpful to me when during my later college years my love for reading really began to grow.
I never read without a pen in my hand. I read like I’m having a conversation with somebody…I ask the book questions, I note my agreement and disagreement, I scribble little ideas and such in the margins.
Does this help?
Justin
I gotta renew my Wired subscription. it’s a great mag–Fast Company too.
I have a hard time deciding WHICH book to read. I end up taking 4-5 books for a 2 day vacation.
Did your little sidebar “Gospel-Community-Mission” thing come from your reading of Total Church? (I like the artwork.)
Josh, hey deer-shooter. :) Yes, reading Total Church sharpened/simplified my core commitments for our community, leading me to come up with a little artwork/diagram for expressing what we’re about.
Gadgets and the intertubes have ruined my attention span. I used to read 20 or so books a year, but haven’t finished a book in months. I start them, get bored, then put them down and go back to messing with my iPod, PC, PS3, HTPC, etc.
I want to know how much “work” time you spend reading. One issue for pastors is how they ought to spend their unscheduled weekly hours. How much time do you think is appropriate to simply sit and read? Personally, I love reading so much that I could probably spend too much time with books and not enough with people.
We have recently made an exciting discovery–three years after writing the wonderfully expanded third edition of How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren made a series of thirteen 14-minute videos on the art of reading. The videos were produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica. For reasons unknown, sometime after their original publication, these videos were lost.
When we discovered them and how intrinsically edifying they are, we negotiated an agreement with Encyclopaedia Britannica to be the exclusive worldwide agent to make them available.
For those of you who teach, this is great for the classroom.
I cannot over exaggerate how instructive these programs are–we are so sure that you will agree, if you are not completely satisfied, we will refund your donation.
Please go here to see a clip and learn more:
http://www.thegreatideas.org/HowToReadABook.htm
