John Wesley once challenged preachers, "Either read or get out of the ministry." I wonder when a circuit riding preacher like Wesley found the time to read, but I guess when his daily sermonizing ended he requested a bed with a candle placed nicely by his bedside for reading.

Sven Birkerts declared in 1994 in his book The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in the Electronic Age that reading in the under thirty crowd is in decline. "I see the wholesale wiring of America," Birkerts proclaimed.1 Birkerts felt that reading's demise will come because the world of e-mail and Internet surfing will steal time from people. Time stolen translates into few moments to enjoy a book.

Birkerts missed his prophetic warning, though. How could he have guessed that Stephen King would allow readers to download his tome, or that Zondervan would invite readers to download chapter one of Philip Yancey's Reaching for the Invisible God?

Ask Barnes and Noble or the average church member standing at the door on Sunday morning, and you will find that reading is in, big time. It's just that much of what people read is not what preachers read. Is this good or bad?

Preachers read books on preaching style, like Fred Craddock's Preaching or Calvin Miller's The Empowered Communicator or Eugene Lowry's The Homiletical Plot. The goal of such reading is to improve preaching and find a creative angle in which to unfold the sermon.

Or preachers read in order to improve themselves. Preachers read George Barna for The Power of Vision, for demographic insights and trends. Preachers read Eugene Peterson for improving those angles of ministry while searching for that "tall-steeple church with a cheese cake congregation,"2 knowing all the while the church you pastor is Under the Unpredictable Plant. After all, preachers need a little help to spread The Message.

Preachers read Max Lucado for the great story, somehow hoping that if the congregation does not applaud, maybe somehow God will sound forth The Applause of Heaven. Preachers read Philip Yancey for the great quote from Luther or Augustine, wishing for that striking quote in the sermon What Is So Amazing about Grace?

For ministry preachers read Henri Nouwen while gleaning the secrets In the Name of Jesus. For leadership John Maxwell gets you into the groove. For the sermon family series James Dobson gives advice: Love Must Be Tough. For a smorgasbord of ideas Chuck Swindoll comes through. Soon you will Laugh Again. Surely your sermons will find Hope Again. And of course, preachers read C.S. Lewis for that creative children's sermon about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Every preacher knows the path to Word Pictures for sermons from A. T. Robertson or the joy of wading through the detail of F. F. Bruce on John or James Dunn on Romans or Warren Wiersbe, who can help your sermons just Be.

Preachers serve as the great book buyers of the age. Ask any preacher if he or she has a book and presto, you'll find a stack of unread books off in some corner of the study. Preachers buy books. They collect books. They read books.