Reading Helps Leaders Keep Growing
Mark A. Taylor reflects on the simple truth that living things must grow or die, connecting that lesson to the life of the soul and mind. He argues that reading is essential nourishment for Christians, especially leaders who want to remain effective and growing.
- Growth requires nourishment, whether in plants, people, spirit, or intellect.
- Reading remains essential for continued learning and leadership.
- The article points readers toward examples of leaders whose lives have been shaped by books.
By Mark A. Taylor
Living things grow, or they die.
This is a fact I tend to forget every spring when I’m planting. I have this way of cramming too many plants into my borders and patio pots. But at the end of the summer everyone can see my folly.
Zinnia struggle for sunlight as they poke their stems through the drooping stems of spent perennials planted too close beside them. Tomato vines sprawl, the vines poking through slats of the deck and snaking through daylilies nearby.
I notice some plants have grown to the size of a small bush, while others remain as single stalks. The difference? The larger plants were planted alone in a substantial pot. Their spindly siblings fought for nutrients and sunlight with others shoved too close beside them. When I purchased them they were all the same size, but some grew six times the size of others.
Growth Requires Nourishment
That leads to a second truth about living things. They require food, or they won’t grow. (Which means, you remember, they’ll die.)
Let me hasten to my point before you give up on these statements of the obvious. What’s true of plants (and people, I might add; we’ve all seen pictures of those children in Africa), is true of our spirit and intellect as well.
If our soul is alive and our brain isn’t dead, it’s because they’re growing. They’re receiving nourishment. And, even in this multimedia age, that requires reading.
Readers Keep Growing
Kenneth S. Hemphill, writing in the Baptist Press this summer, told about bumping into a fellow Baptist at an airport bookstore. His new acquaintance, a recent Christian college graduate, said he was glad to be out of school so he would no longer need to read.
“Can it be true that we no longer read?” Hemphill asked his readers in dismay. He quoted T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, who wrote, “Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.”
He added an observation from best-selling leadership guru Kenneth Blanchard, who said that with very few exceptions, readers are leaders.
That’s the bottom line in the articles by Fred Hansen and Brian Jones this week. If you don’t read, sooner or later you’ll die, or at least your effectiveness will. Accompanying those articles are brief recommendations from our contributing editors. “Tell our readers about a book that’s made a difference in your life this year,” we invited them.
They offer the testimony of leaders who are readers. We’re pleased to share their example.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
