Thoughts from Orlando
Well, this week, I’ve been bombarded with a ton of information and thoughts from various people. As I took a little time this morning to reflect, here are the ones that I wanted to share and get others’ perspectives.
- The importance of books: We would be arogant to think that we could think of and figure out everything that is useful. Wisdom, perspective, reason, and emotion are all contained in books — everything from the Bible to books in our career areas. If we are serious about being humble and about gaining wisdom, we must invest time reading.
- The need to train: Since coming to this training, we’ve been made to practice telling our story over, and over, and over again. Do you know what the result has been? I’ve gotten much more comfortable at telling it. I can mold it and flex each sentence to the particular need because I don’t have to worry about the content; I know it.
Why don’t we do this with the gospel? Why don’t we practice telling it to each other over, and over, and over again as though the other person didn’t know a thing about Jesus? I think we’d get much more comfortable and be more effective at leading others to Christ when opportunities present themselves.
- The importance of memorization: We are constantly being shaped by our inputs. The people with whom we interact, the books we read, and the things into which we plug all affect the way we think. Therefore, we must be getting the Word into us. We forget 60-80% of the things we read and 50-60% of the things we study, but 0% of the things we memorize and review! We must be getting the Word into us. So many men who have been significantly shaped by the mold of Christ tell me this, it must be true.
Those are the things I’ve been thinking about. What do you think?
all very good thoughts, and, strangely enough, all things I’ve been convicted with lately. I need to read more. A LOT more. I’ve been reading my bible consistently for the first time every this last month, we’ve also recently started reading “The Purpose Drive Life”, and I know there are several other books I’d like to be reading right (some christian, some not…). I’ve decided that I’m going to set aside a portion of each day for reading.
In Orlando, we were lead in a devotional by Olan Hendrix, who reads ~300 books/year. He mentioned that one of the keys to reading a lot is to always be reading. Carry a book with you. Keep one in the car. Have a book everywhere. Then just pick one up when you have some idle time. He also said that it’s important to keep several books going at once. That way you can always be reading, even if you’re not into book X at time Y.
Wow! You have a blog too! You are totally geting linked.
Cool, Adam. BTW, that was a nice article in Relevant.
Thank you!
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