October 2011

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, I remember having a comic book based on the best seller The Cross and the Switchblade. Written by David Wilkerson, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill (who remain editors for Guideposts magazine), it’s the story of a country preacher from Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, who felt God calling him to serve Latino teens in New York in the late 1950s-early 1960s.

I have a confession to make. I’m not very good at reading the Bible.

I grew up a preacher’s kid. Watching my father up there behind a pulpit teaching and offering biblical insights left an indelible impression on me as a kid. I remember he’d get so passionate about what he was saying that he’d look up at the clock in the school where our church met and remark about how the time flies.

This past week I was taking a walk not far from the Guideposts offices in Manhattan and came across a sign at the Madison Avenue Baptist Church that read, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”

Whoa! You could write a whole book unpacking that one. But let’s think about what it might mean when we look at the topic of reading.