Every now and then, someone will ask how I manage to find time to read or to take seminary classes. It's true that it takes a bit of creative scheduling and sacrifice to fit it in...but here's what I've realized:
I spend a lot of time each week on OUTPUT (preaching, teaching, discipling, creating content, writing). But if I'm going to spend all that time on OUTPUT, I've got to make sure I'm getting enough INPUT (study, reading, learning).
It's a very simple equation: INPUT > OUTPUT.
If I consistently invest more time in OUTPUT than in INPUT, eventually I'm going to run out. (You might say: "If OUTPUT > INPUT, then I will go KAPUT"....OK, OK, corny, I know!) The point is, to me, I can't afford not to read or study or stretch my brain.
One more thing: Not only does INPUT need to be greater than OUTPUT in scope, but it must also be greater in terms of depth. If I'm teaching at a "level 6" depth, I need to be learning at a "level 10" depth. This is one of the reasons I don't often read books by other pastors or Christian leaders...stuff you'd find on the "Christian Living" shelf. It's not because they're no good; many of them are. It's just that I need to ABSORB content that's a "10" so I can hope to DISSEMINATE content at a "6" or a "7" (assuming I don't integrate everything I'm learning, because most of the time I don't!) You might think it's hypocritical because all my books are "Christian Living", but it's precisely because I write "Christian Living" books and precisely because I'm a pastor that I must read and learn at a depth beyond that. I used to listen to other pastors podcasts, but since I've been preaching almost every Sunday night for the past two years in addition to often teaching our Sunday School class in the mornings, I've traded podcasts for iTunesU. I want to listen to and read theologians (Hauerwas, Barth) and Biblical scholars (McKnight, Green, Goldingay) and historians (Wright) so that my INPUT > OUTPUT not just in quantity but in quality.
Pastors are famous for dismissing "academics," saying they can't deal with "theories" and "conjecture." They need to learn from "practitioners." I understand that. Many academics have not done well at taking their best learning and communicating it in a non-academic way. (I'll write another post some time on some of my favortie academics who are great at exporting their learning beyond academia-- though you could probably guess the list!) But my response to the "I only need to learn from other practitioners" folks is this: Just as making a copy from a copy will degrade the quality over time, so pastors and teachers who only listen to and learn from other pastors and teachers (and not also from theologians, scholars, historians, etc) will gradually decline in the depth of their teaching.
What do you think?
Who are you favorite sources of INPUT and learning?
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