A Pastor on Books
I haven’t sent out kudos to the Standard recently, but I promise it hasn’t been for want of good articles.? Our tradition’s little magazine has done a nice little series about the nature of truth, run columns about the value of keeping controversies in the open rather than splitting off and closing ranks around their opposing camps, and offered calls to continue financial support of Christian colleges.? I just haven’t written about them of late.
This column I wanted to note here not because it’s a new message for the Standard but because the writer is not a college professor or a journalist but a pastor and moreover the pastor of one of our tradition’s largest and most visible congregations.? His account of reading as a pastoral act is brief (as pieces for our little magazine must be) but on-target:
A great difference exists between assimilating information and the critical thinking process that helps us arrive at an understanding. There is an even greater disparity between understanding and being able to process the information well enough to explain it to other people.
Reading is one of the main contributors to my life as a pastor?not passive or casual reading, but reading that really stirs my mind, provokes my imagination, and causes me to form my own views. I believe something happens inside our brains when we read. Reading triggers mental pictures, so we can literally ?see? our way to a more imaginative and clear idea of what the author is trying to say. In movies, the pictures are provided for us, so our brains don?t have to do the exhilarating work of imagining the tone, texture, and colors of what we are reading.
As usual, I’m glad that among other great things about my little congregation in Athens, picking up and reading the Standard stands as one of the weekly rituals.
