Teaching Summer 1987

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"When you leave seminary," a professor had said, "you should have a trunkful of personal belongings and a U-Haul full of books."

I chuckled, but the chuckle was laden with guilt-guilt over my meager library and guilt over spending money on books. Not that I didn't like books. I loved them. But having a love affair with books is different from actually building a library. My wife and I were just starting married life, complete with bills. How could we afford our living expenses, pay tuition and still buy books? We simply couldn't.

When the day came to move to our first full-time ministry, we did load a U-Haul-with our personal belongings. My books didn't even fill the back seat of our '72 Hornet.

The desire to seriously work on my library remained frustrated early in the pastorate. One child was born the first year and a second was soon on the way. My library lay dormant.

With inadequate resources for sermon preparation, I found my creativity suffering. For example, while working on a message about heaven, I could locate only a few pages in a theological text in my study. A trip to a Christian bookstore miles away turned up just one brief paperback. Even a simple matter like a historical or scientific illustration involved driving sixteen miles to look in the public library's encyclopedia.

By the time I left this first ministry, I was hungry for any type of book. I needed literature, history, philosophy, biography, a set of encyclopedias, dictionaries, better commentaries, and books of sermons.

Then one bright spring day I came across a Salvation Army Thrift Store downtown. Curious, I went inside. I couldn't believe it. In one section I found about four thousand used books, divided by subject. Most were priced at fifty cents or ...

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