Pretending to be a reader

I have an older brother, Dave that has been in youth ministry for close to 15 years. When I went to college back in the fall of '99 he started preaching at me to starting reading books about ministry. I hate reading books, always have. I think it is because I am scared from horrifying memories of grade school and having to read in front of the class and I can’t figure out how to pronounce "slide". Simple word, yeah I know, but one day it stumped me in front of the whole class. I also think that I am permanently scared by the stupid reading competitions they did back in the day, were they had goals for reading so many books during the year and the student that read the most books gets $100. I would get excited and start reading books at home with all my free time and finish 2 books in 2 weeks, and some stupid smart girl would read 30 in the same time period. Those made me hate reading also. I probably should forgive that girl, but I’ll save that for another day.

So all that aside, my brother told me that I need to read books to be a good youth minister, and since I like to please people I try to read books. However, for the most part I get 50 pages into a book and if it doesn’t grab me I am going to put it on my shelf and I will never pick it up again. There are probably 15 books that I have read in the last 2 ½ years that I have actually read all the way through and enjoyed them. There are more that I have forced myself to read, so I can say that I read that book.

I am reading a book now and it is awesome, “Communicating for a Change” by Andy Stanley. It is a book about preaching, I know exciting right! It is a cool book that is told in the format of a parable of a preacher that sucks and knows it. And how he gets help from this trucker is teaching on how to be a better preacher. It is a cool book and hopefully it will help me be a better preacher.