Proclaimer Blog
Why do you read?
When we moved the EMA to the Barbican, we had a major rethink about the Bookstore and, in particular, I gave some time to thinking through why ministers of the gospel should read. I guess we had, perhaps subconsciously, always thought in terms of providing a ministers bookstore. But what does that actually mean? The result was that we came up with our three categories of books. Some of these are more natural selections than others. I think we tend to use our limited time to read for ourselves, and often not for our own personal walk, but rather for ministry.
That’s certainly an important category, but not the only one. Here’s what we came up with.
We aim for the Bookstore to serve you in three different ways and have chosen titles for you:
– as followers of Christ: books that will help us understand what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Mark 8:34)
– as preachers and teachers: books that will assist Bible preachers and teachers to correctly handle the word of truth (2 Tim 2:15)
– as leaders of congregations: books that will be good for our people as we seek to shepherd them wisely (1 Peter 5:2)
In fact, ministers of the gospel who are not reading in each of these areas will be at risk of being seriously deficient.