If you made any New Year’s resolutions, chances are (if you’re like most people) you’ve already broken them. Right at about the second or third week of January, resolution-makers start dropping like flies. Well, we’re going to give you a delayed-start resolution to make. It’s easy, attainable, and very rewarding.
Our suggestion for a resolution is this: read at least five books in 2011. That’s it. It’s an easy goal that you should be able to accomplish with relative ease. Here’s how.
- Make a list of five books that you’d like to read. The number five isn’t arbitrary. There’s a good reason for it. First, it’s a manageable number of books. If you were to try to read one book a week or one book a month, it might get a little cumbersome. Five for the year isn’t bad at all. Second, choosing five books allows you to select different types of books. For example, you could choose a biography, a ministry how-to book, a book on child-rearing, a theological book, and a classic novel. Reading a breadth of styles, subject matters, and genres can be very helpful.
- Buy the first book. Have a few dollars left over from Christmas? Go ahead and purchase your first book. We recommend Christianbook.com. If you are cash-strapped, you can find plenty of free books in the public domain from Project Gutenberg.
- Read at least 5-10 pages every day. Now, it’s time to actually do the reading. If most books are from 250-300 pages, you should be able to get through five books by reading just a few pages every day. If you want to shoot higher, and read a whole chapter or more every day, you’re going to quickly outgrow the five-books goal.
That’s it. Reading is the key to improving your ministry and cultivating your mind. We think you’ll find that this goal for reading in 2011 will be attainable, and most importantly, will be very rewarding.
Here are five book suggestions to get you started. And, if you’re still struggling with finding time to read, look over this article.
Let us know what five books you’ve chosen to read in 2011.
