Do we need books?
‘How do I get guys to read good Christian books?’ That’s one of the questions we kicked about in Apprenticeship Workshop this morning. It was posed by the pastor of an evening congregation full of professional men and women. He argued that most blokes found books like Vaughan Roberts’ God’s Big Picture a little too demanding. As I remember, I made a funny about the size of the book being a little intimidating. It fell flat. But we don’t need to go there.
In thinking about this issue, it’s worth asking three questions
1. Is it true that guys don’t read?
In other words, does the mud stick? I think it’s probably a fair assumption that it does. It’s not true of all of us, but it’s true of many. We’ll happily browse the Metro on the commute. But that doesn’t really count, does it? I’m tempted to say that it’s too late to get a new generation of people to read. But even the most unlikely characters got back into books when JK Rowling put pen to paper. We can read. We will read. It’s just that we don’t. We especially don’t read Christian books.
2. Why don’t guys read?
- It could be that all Christian books are rubbish! For the record, I don’t think that they are. But it’s undeniable that some of them are very hard to read. Sometimes that’s because the subject matter is mentally demanding. At other times it’s because they’ve been written by people with no understanding of the English language. At other times it’s because they have no understanding of biblical theology. They’re not equally bad!
- It could be that we’re fed up with reading. If we’ve spent the day poring over various documents at work who wants to read? At the end of the day we’re knackered, mentally we just fancy a break. Reading is demanding. Who wants ‘demanding’ for fun? It requires our concentration. TV’s not like that. It stimulates us even when the weary. It might just comatose us. But it’s true that I’ll happily watch rubbish until the early hours but I won’t read a book. I suspect I’m not alone.
- It could be that we’re lazy. If our hearts aren’t spiritually alive and beating with zeal for the Lord then we won’t have a passion for His word or for books that are shaped by His word. So spiritually we may need to be encouraged and challenged to ’step up to the plate’.
- It could be that we’re unaware of the benefit of reading. The Christian life is one in which we need to be discipled by others. That’s especially true when we start out in the Christian life. If someone can draw alongside us and testify to the benefit to our own or others’ spiritual lives then we may be more conducive to the idea. That way it becomes a discipline we develop and value early on.
- It could be that we’re just not readers. At all. Period. That’ll be true of some of us. So teaching DVDs and MP3s are probably the way to go. But we can’t ditch reading altogether. We need to read. If we don’t read the instructions on a bottle of medicine we won’t know how much dosage to take and we put our lives at risk. If we don’t read God’s word in the Bible we put our spiritual life at risk. There’s some reading we simply have to do!
- It could be that we’ve become over reliant on other forms of media. I’ve written on the danger of listening to MP3s elsewhere. Generally I’m positive, with some reservations.
- It could be that we don’t read. If others pick up from us that it’s possible to live the Christian life without any serious consideration of others’ writings then we can’t blame them if they don’t bother either! Apparently someone once said ‘leaders are readers’, in our ministry context of urban professional people they probably need to be. And that’s a challenge to me.
- It could be that we don’t know what to read. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, ‘Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh’. He had a point. But if there’s a plethora of literary options we can become confused by our options. Sometimes we just need some recommendations.
3. How can we get guys to read?
Essentially it’s all about desire. If the appetite to read isn’t there then we won’t be able to sustain the discipline. And so, we need to have our interest piqued! One of the ways I’ve done this is to give guys articles to read. Most of us can manage a few papges of A4. If the subject matter grabs us then we’ll read it. We handed out Mark Driscoll’s Porn Again Christian at a recent Men’s Weekend Away. Most guys read it in one sitting!
Find some good books. If guys have had bad experiences of reading dull books then spice up their reading list. Go for some cracking Christian biographies of men who lived wholeheartedly for Christ.
Recommend a book for the term. We haven’t done this for ages. But the enthusiasm generated by a good book combined with the positive feedback from others might just be enough to rouse us from our lethargy! Here are some doctrinal recommendations. I know doctrine’s not everyone’s cup of tea. These aren’t a light read. So perhaps ignore them for a while! But these are my recommendations for ‘compulsory’ reading for guys in their 20s!
Start a reading group. In all honesty it’s easier to read a book with others. Sometimes that means actually reading the words out loud with one or two others and taking it in turns to read. There’s no shame in that. I find it easier to read a book if I’m somehow accountable for reading it. I need to be helped to develop a discipline of reading. Naturally I wouldn’t plough my way through John Frame’s Salvation Belongs to the Lord. But strangely, because I need to talk about it with the Apprentices every Wednesday, I’m making good progress. Go figure!
I’m lazy and books don’t have things that need fixing. Maybe if they came with an airfix kit to create as you read? Much of my problem is having a reason to read – I’ve got to do a talk at Crossfire in a few weeks, so I’m reading. I still struggle to do it for leisure though. Saying that, I have just read your blog.
Comment by Colin Hall — February 12, 2009 @ 10:26 am
Generally speaking, if someone believes a book is relevant, they will read it.
That’s why self-help books are so popular. At the weekend we read Driscoll’s book because we saw its immediate relevance and practicality. As long as someone looks at a book and thinks “it’s irrelevant (and therefore boring)”, you face an uphill battle.
Example: I’ve had JI Packer’s “A Passion for Holiness” on my shelf for years. I’ve tried reading it twice. I think I need a passion for holiness for me to sit down and read it. The blurb, from what I remember, makes no effort to help me see its relevance. And the cover makes me want to die. I’m not laying the blame on Packer or the publishers, but they’re not helping. Call it “How to kill evil” and have a gun on the front, and you’ve got my attention.
So as to the question “How do I get guys to read good Christian books?”, the question I want to ask is “why should anyone read the book that you’re recommending?”. If you can explain why a book is relevant–and therefore not boring–you’ve gone a long way.
Another example: Knowing God, also by Packer. It’s always been presented to me as a beast of a book, as something I will find hard to read but that I “should” read. In some ways it is hard to read. But I picked it up a couple of months ago and was amazed at how it begins. It is about how we can actually know God and relate to him, rather than merely know about him; about how we can find genuine joy in God, and move beyond talking about the mere idea of him. How relevant and important is that?! I actually felt quite excited about it.
So there’s a long strategy and a short strategy. As people realise the relevance of biblical truth to their lives, they will become more open to reading Christian book generally. But in the short term, it’s about convincing someone about why a book is relevant to them.
Comment by Phil C — February 12, 2009 @ 10:58 am
For what it’s worth, I am excellent at starting Christian books, but very rarely finish them. It would have to be pretty awesome to take me beyond 150 pages before I’m hungry to go and discover something else from someone else. My attention span is made for the blogosphere! Best book I’ve read is probably Piper’s ‘Roots of Endurance’, as compulsively distributed by G. Reid.
Btw, are any of those listed books still useful for me given that I turn 30 on Monday?!
Comment by Andybeingachristian — February 12, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
Phil
You’ve strengthened the point I made about desire, you’ve just called it relevance.
perks
Comment by Richard Perkins — February 12, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
Exactly! It’s all about relevance. I wasn’t arguing, just putting it a different way.
I think the greater difficulty is getting people to read at all. And like Andy said, the internet doesn’t help:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Comment by Phil C — February 13, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
Does anyone remember only a few years ago everyone on the tube/train used to be reading a book, now it’s either ipod or freesheet or both! It’s harder to read a book now because people are making so much noise talking on mobiles playing on their latests gadgets. This issue is that human nature is always going to take the easy route - even if it is less rewarding.
You say “If we don’t read God’s word in the Bible we put our spiritual life at risk” I think you are right, I’ve always gone along with this, but I now have nagging reservation. Surly an impaction of this means that those with an academic education, or those with a more literate bent will have a greater spiritual life. This makes me feel very uneasy, surly the illiterate will ask others to read to them, they can grow without ever reading themselves.
Now with the advent of modern technology those with less of an academic education could be drawn to receiving Gods word though other channels. I think we make bible reading much harder at CCB by choosing a translation of the bible that is harder to read than the king James Version.
Lets not get too bogged down in the medium and focus on content - what are people listening on the ipods? Are people producing the right kind of content? It makes much more discipline for the creator of content for more modern media not to be full extraneous points.
Colin Hall made an interesting point that he doesn’t read, but was reading your blog. In the course of a day I read lots online much of it is work related, but not all of it. I read the news online. I used to struggle to read on screen but for waste/financial reasons I trained my self to read on a screen. It may also be that I have a good screen. I think in time we will all be conformable reading on screens. So we should ask questions about what are we reading online and what is being produced.
I used to read about 5 books a week when I worked as a security guard. The commute plus the job gave me plenty of time, and it would be morally wrong to waste it. But now I don’t commute I go though books much much more slowly. The belief I will finish the book is a key part of me starting in the first place.
Christian books also have the added problem that they are non fiction - that suits me as I often will read something and then not pick it up for a few days - that plays havoc with fiction. But fiction is many way runs deeper because it has a story.
Comment by John Lumgair — February 14, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
I posted this on the MP3’s post, the comment below is coming from the same place as John. Reading and books are quite a middle class hobby/pastime.
As a part of the ‘slow reader group’, I am not dyslexic just thick. After reading christian books I question whether it changes anything, I am really not being cynical or trying to be clever.
Please tell me what books changed the way you live, your attitude and why.
I can think of sermons, bible studies, discussions, conversations, circumstances that have. How does a book disciple you? Obviously the bible is a book but as a christian it grabs me because of the God who wrote it not because it is a book with pages.
I know I am not bright but with ‘Knowing God’ The Cross of Christ’ I literally had to read every paragraph twice (maybe 5 times). This is not a sleight on the authors just my intellect.
It is possible that some a christian elsewhere in the world could know God better and have never read a christian book.
Comment by Tom Stanbury — February 16, 2009 @ 6:39 pm