Why Read?

I never thought I would become a reader. It is one of the catalysts to my personal spiritual revival over the past few years that all started with just one book. In 2016, I just finished 17 books and I don’t think that I’ve read 17 books in the past decade prior.

I’ve always dreaded reading and have had a low reading comprehension ever since… well ever since I could read. I’ve let that”self-proclaimed-not-a-reader” attitude rule my desire to read ever since. In recent history, in my educational and ministry development, I’ve been required to read a lot of books and I’ve found that book requirements have certainly not helped with my desire to read. It seems for me that:

Required Reading + Difficult Reading(undesirable content or lousy author) = A Chore

BUT there was this one time I enjoyed reading…

I was at a point with my public speaking and preaching where I felt ineffective and frustrated. To remedy this, I’ve asked multiple preachers over the years what they do to prepare content and deliver it, but I never received very helpful answers.

I decided that if I can’t get help from people, perhaps there’s a book on this subject that might be helpful to me. So I passively started looking for a book and quickly found a title that piqued my interest.

Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley

It looked short and the title was exactly what I was feeling, so I decided to give it a try.

It was exactly what I needed. It helped me not only with a fresh idea for sermon preparation, but also for effective delivery. It was helpful content written by an author that communicated on a level that I can understand. And I think the key is that I was hungry for this information. That one book made a big difference in my life where I was desiring a change and this started a new habit that made me a reader. And by extension, has made me a learner, a better husband, father, leader, etc.

So a formula that I have found that works for me in regards to reading is:

Hunger for Topic + Author that I can understand = Enjoyment

If you are not a reader, I would suggest that you try this formula on yourself and see what happens. Who knows, you might just become a reader too and end up creating a reading list for yourself in this next year. But if you’re happy with yourself just the way you are, then don’t read, it’ll change you too much.

#reading