After some deliberation, I have decided to close the Reformed Book Club.
Reasons for its closure
Firstly, the time required for maintenance of the book club is starting to add up. For over five and a half years I haven't missed a single day of reading a book section and writing a blog post to accompany the reading. But that has required many hours of my life. In the early days of my ministry in our small church, such time was available to me. These days it is getting harder and harder to juggle book club readings in amongst the other demands on my time.
Secondly, there hasn't been a lot of interest in the book club. Over the years, very few comments have been made on the blog. Now, this is probably my fault as I'm not very good at advertising the book club. Nonetheless, it has been difficult for me to give time to a project that appears to be making very little impact on the kingdom of God. I believe there may now be better uses of my time.
Thirdly, my reading patterns have developed. In the early days of my pastorate, my reading habits were spasmodic. The book club gave regularity to my personal reading as I was forced to read books daily, including difficult books that I knew were good for my soul. However these days I have a lot more control of my reading and so no longer need the book club to motivate me. In fact, most of my reading is done outside of the book club.
What happens now
I will not close the book club overnight. Instead I will simply cease to add new titles to the club. This means that we will finish all the books that we are currently reading and the book club will probably close around August 2015 (just after its sixth birthday).
And when I say close, I do not mean that it will be taken offline. I will leave the club with all its posts and comments online for people to use for those 100+ books that we have worked through. Thus new members can come to the site, read through the various titles and make comments on those sections.
Thank you
I would like to thank all of those who have encouraged me in this endeavour and supported me both privately and publicly. I know that many of you have enjoyed the book club and will be disappointed by its closure. However I hope that the book club may have encouraged you to read good books about our good Lord. And I pray that you will continue to do so by your own volition.
4 comments:
Pastor Radford, thank you so, so much for your efforts and time on the book club. The book you've chosen and the time you've put into reading and commenting have been an invaluable blessing to me. I have read books I would never have known about, and finished books I would have never gotten through without your labours. I shall continue to slowly make my way through the books on the list I've not finished yet, so thank you for keeping the titles and comments up. May our good and gracious Lord continue to bless you in all your endeavours. I shall miss your insights on the readings, though.
Thank you for your gracious feedback CJ.
Since I made my decision to close the club, I've been toying with the idea of keeping it going by just doing one book a week, instead of seven. It will free me up, but also keep the club alive for any future readers. So stay posted :)
I (quite selfishly to be honest!) do hope you decide to keep it open :). I find I need some sort of accountability, no matter how small, to stay on task, and having the books broken down into manageable increments was the perfect structure for me. At one book a week, I might even manage to stay caught up enough to comment in a timely fashion! I'll keep you in prayer for wisdom in the matter.
Thanks for your comments CJ, I'll bear them in mind. And I'm sure you'll enjoy Burroughs :)
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