The Reading War!

I got to spend some incredible time with some top leaders yesterday. After a 5 am wake up call to start the journey it actually didn't end till after 2 am, well the meetings ended, sleep was another matter with all those great thoughts swimming in my head, So if there are any mistakes in this post, we'll chalk it up to sleep depravation.

I took away two concepts that really touched me during the marathon. One came from my very dear friend Scott Russell, that he had acquired from a book he was reading. If you were given a wish to change the world, what would you do? There is a soft drink company that made a giant ad campaign saying they'd like to teach the world to sing, playing on the need for harmony. That's really not a bad thought, and quite honestly needed. But Scott one upped them in my eyes. His thought was he'd like to teach the world to read. I know, I'm preaching to the choir here, because your reading this! But let's think about this concept. If all the world was taught to fall in love with reading, couldn't we introduce them to the Bible? Wouldn't they be capable of absorbing the principles within? If everyone learned and lived the Ten Commandments, shouldn't that harmony the soft drink company suggested was needed automatically follow? We don't need to teach the world to sing, we need to allow them learn to fall in love with reading.

I said there were two concepts, the second one is a combination of a couple of statements, so forgive me if I don't give credit. "We are in a war!" and isn't it interesting how people are being driven to occupy their time? Our children aren't being taught to read, they are obsessed with other forms of entertainment. Isn't it also odd that the reading material that's being offered is overwhelming? Could any one human keep up with the information overload in print? Those who do read are faced with insurmountable mountains of information. Is that by design? We read less than ever before, why is there so much material available? These are all great questions, and the answers might be suspect. Since there is a battle for the culture of this world, could this be a tool to distract those who refuse to fall prey to the entertainment culture? Reading is now easier then it has ever been with e-readers, but what are we reading? What is capturing the mind of the remaining reading public?

Fantastic questions!

God Bless!
Capt. Bill