Christ in Life
Harper Lee's new novel, Go Set a Watchman, has hit the bookstores with a splash. There is suddenly a renewed interest in novels, especially for those who had to read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school.
Couple this with the statistics recently released about how few people will read a book as an adult: 28% of people in this country read no books last year, and 45% of college graduates have not read a book all the way through since graduating.
I am a reader. Most of my clergy friends are readers. The difference is that I read more novels than nonfiction, and I very rarely read anything but Christian novels. Fiction can be as relevant to pastoral work as any Christian how-to book.
That's why I'm using my novel as my text for teaching Sunday School. Oh, I haven't abandoned the Bible, as you would recognize if you've already read my book. We're discussing the book as a way to talk about how we apply the Bible to our daily lives. Don't we all know folks who know the Bible, backwards and forwards, but haven't integrated it very well into their day-to-day walk?
What we learn on Sunday applies to Monday, and Tuesday, and all the other days of the week.
