Hello fellow educators. Welcome to podcast number 61. I often get asked by friends and colleagues, “what books are you reading?” which is an important question. I read about 3 books a month and several periodicals and podcasts. Today and in the next few podcasts I want to show you how I do this and give you a list of what I consider very important books for the Christian Educator. Before we jump into this I to share a few of the many comments I received from my last two weeks of podcasts on the subject of Special Education. Heritage Christian Schools are now one of the largest providers of Special Education in the Province with almost 100 special needs students. John Davies did an excellent job in summarizing our program. Here is an example of what our listeners wrote:

“Thank you very much for the podcasts on special needs students.  We have been homeschooling for 21 years.  We have been with HCOS for 5 years with 4 of our 6 children, and this year being the first year for our grade 8 special needs son.  It has met his needs and our expectations beyond belief.  The support and recommendations we receive from Steve Bastian, Janet Rainbow, and probably John Davies in the background, is appreciated very much.  We have had the freedom and enabling, to seek educational goals for our son that would not have been met had he continued in the public system.  Availability of funds for private swimming lessons, and speech therapy, and occupational therapy assessment have been very valuable.  No way would we have been able to support our son in this way independently.  There are still more recommendations from the occupational therapist, such as SET BC, that we intend to explore.  I don't mind being an advocate for our son, when there are many options available. If these options are available in the public system, they are so busy with all the other children and politics of the school, that the individual learning needs are not met.  Hopefully you can tell that I am so thankful to our God, for the opportunities HCOS has provided.  We look forward to many more years with HCOS.”

My thanks also to Matthew Baker for contributing to our podcast as well. He is a good example of how a Christian School can build a loving community that both integrates these students and more importantly includes these students in the everyday life of a school.

Ok, so on to the Christian Educator’s life in the books. At risk of sounding a bit preachy, I want to emphasize how important it is for any educator to make time to read. It doesn’t matter if you are a home educator or the administrator of a large Christian school, it is important to continue to grow and develop in your craft, your faith and your world and reading is an important key to making this happen. We say to our kids that we want them to become lifelong learners but are we a good example of this ourselves. Ok, sorry for that, I will try to not preach. I do have a couple of good suggestions I want to share with you today.

As I said earlier, I read anywhere from 2 to 3 books a month and listen to about 2 to 3 hours of podcasts a week and I have found the secret to becoming well read educator with a very busy schedule. Although, let me say, that I don’t have as busy a schedule as you might think. People always tell me how busy I must be because I have so much responsibility, which frankly, I find a bit annoying. Yes, I am busy, but I choose to be busy because of the tasks I have embraced but, I am not too busy. I spend lots of time with my wife and family. I watch TV, go to movies, play golf and lead a fairly normal life. Like most of us, I have really busy times and not so busy times. I work hard at making sure that I take responsibility for my schedule. By the way I have a book to recommend that really helped me be proactive about my how to take control of the important parts of your time. I believe in the principle of the Sabbath and do not feel guilty about taking time off for myself. I realize that I am talking to the Mom who is homeschooling her three kids, helping her husband in his business and trying to keep her house together or the harried teacher who wants to stay on top of their lessons, marking, and school activities not to mention their home life. I also realize that I am in a time in my life where I have more control of my schedule than most people. Nevertheless, that period of life when our kids are young or our work is demanding is not an excuse to stop being a lifelong learner. Ok, ok I do realize that I am preaching again and somewhat to the choir, because you are listening to my podcast and this counts as educational development.

Here is my secret. Back in 1998 I found www.audible.com. I had taken a couple of road trips where I borrowed a couple of audio books on tape and found that the monotony of driving was swept away in wonderful stories that I and my family listened to. On one trip where we literally drove to Mexico in two and half days we listened to a dramatized version of the Lord of the Rings. My family’s all time favourite book which we listened on four or five trips was Theodore Taylor’s, “The Cay.” As we would climb into the car for some long drive the kids would plan to go on this adventure of survival on a small Caribbean island with Timothy and Phillip. As I become more accustomed to listening to books I took the step and enrolled in Audible’s book club. This enabled me to download a book a month for about $12. Several years ago I expanded to 2 books a month for about $23 US. I have listened to hundreds of books that I have downloaded through Audible. In recent years more and more different types of books have become available as the internet has expanded this market. Listening to books and keeping you attention focused on the content does take a bit of skill, especially when you are doing something else. But I always found reading difficult as well. I have to focus and concentrate and frankly I have some lazy habits when I physically read. But like anything important I push through and work at it. The same is true of listening to a book. As you do it more and more you will find that you can retain what you are reading with less effort. I find that listening goes to a different place in my brain. So when it is a book I am reading for enjoyment I rarely need to apply much focus. When it is a book that I am reading for spiritual or professional purposes I stop and re-listen. If I am listening to a book that I find the content compelling or important I will go out and buy the book because I will want to quote and use it for reference.

Let me say a quick word about what podcasts I listen to. Like my books I split my reading/listening between pleasure and professional or Christian development. One podcast in particular I find very informative on all different topics is “To Best of OurKnowledge”. This 50 minute podcast comes out twice a week and is a collection of interviews on various topics with authors who have written about those topics. On many occasions I have listened to an interview and gone out and bought their book. I also listen to one or two of my favourite preacher’s podcasts and my favourite for entertainment is the Vinyl Café Stories from CBC Radio with Stuart McLean. My wife does her podcast listening when she does her 30 minute workout in the morning. Her favourites are the Christian Educator (of course) and the Focus on the Family broadcasts. If you haven’t figured out podcasting yet then you need to free up an hour and learn how to do this. It’s the new radio medium. Of course I am writing this for those of you who are reading this article or have to listen while you are at your computer.

In order to listen to podcasts regularly or read audible books you will need to get a mobile device. Frankly, and I hate to admit it, in the computer world “I am a PC,” but the Ipod is absolutely the best way to go. It works seamlessly with Itunes which can be downloaded for a PC or Mac. Itunes is great for organizing all of your listening content. If you have any other MP3 device or Cell phone that has sufficient memory you can download your books and podcast to those devices as well. Check with www.audible.com to see if your device is supported.

As I begin my list of what I consider my favourite or the most important books that any Christian Educator should be reading or have read I am very aware that this is my list. My journey to where I am today has within it many ideas and thoughts that God has brought to me on this path. It is very different than most professional educators. I came to this vocation from Pastoral ministry and not through the academic stream that most professional educators come to the classroom. Because of this I often feel like the least educated man in the room. My degree is in theology from a small non-accredited Bible School that doesn’t exist anymore, Christian Center Bible Institute. I have over the years supplemented my training through Master’s courses in education primarily sponsored by Trinity Western University. Because of this I realize that my list is woefully inadequate from an Academic perspective. I tend to be drawn to sources outside of education although when I get that category in the next few podcasts there are some books that are imperative for every educator to be reading right now. In my first fifteen years as a Christian and a Pastor almost all of my reading was in the area of theology. I still consider this to be my discipline of study. In Howard Gardner’s recent book, Five Minds for the Future, one of the books I am presently reading/listening to right now, he describes those with the Disciplined Mind as someone who has focused on and mastered a particular discipline for at least 10 years. It took me fifteen but as I mentioned before I am a slow reader. At the culmination of my studies I wrote a book entitled, “The Mystery of the Three Days and Nights,” which can be found online at my publishing website, www.christianthinker.org. Theology, to this day, still turns my crank. I love to spend a couple of hours reading and thinking about the deep things of God, ourselves, the church, the world and the devil. Like anyone I am not a fan of certain types of theology. I dislike almost all eschatology (end time teaching) and I have become somewhat sceptical of any behaviour or spiritual methodology that many from the movement I cut my teeth in are apt to write about.  So as I present to you my list please understand that I truly consider it my list. I was contemplating my journey the other day with a few regrets that I didn’t experience the Academic community the way that most of my colleagues have. The reminded me that I have been very careful to follow him in every big decision for the last 30 years and that this has prepared me for where I am today. I don’t have many letters after my name but I am reminded that not many educators are doing what I am doing these days. So I take comfort in the training program of the Holy Spirit and I read lots and lots of books. 

I plan to give you a number of categories and I will try to keep my list of Greg’s Super Important Books to Read” to two or three books in a category. Here is where I would love you to participate with me. Please send in one book that you think must be added to this category. If I think it should fit then I will add your recommendation to the next podcast and if it doesn’t make it then go www.wikihow.com to learn how to start your own podcast.

My first category for reading is for me theology. Now I put anything that talks about God or the Christian life under this category. I have literally thousands of books in my three libraries and in boxes in my garage on theology. As I stated before, all I read for the first 15 years of my Christian walk was theology. So to try and sum this up in two or three titles is impossible for me. I have collections from classical authors and church fathers. I went through a phase where all I read was about Church History. Early on I only read authors from the movement I grew up through. So I have thought about this and can come up with the 3 most important titles for myself and I think you will be surprised by the first.

Let me say first that I don’t consider the Bible to be a “book” to read. It is the foundation of everything we are to see and understand everything else from. Do I “read” the Bible? Sort of. Actually I have tried to absorb the Bible, experience the Bible, understand the Bible and in a very real sense have a relationship with the Bible. I don’t mean that I worship the pages or words of the book, what I mean is the Bible has become my minds constant companion in thought. I spent the first two years of my Christian walk memorizing most of Apostles writings. I try to see and read everything through the eyes of Paul and Jesus. Thus I don’t really think of the Bible in this category.

The first book that seemed to synthesized my theology and experience in words that painted the grand picture of who I am, who God is and our relationship to each other and the world was and is very controversial to this day. I am not even sure I would recommend it to everyone because of the continued controversy of the author and the movement that has sprung from those who have read his works. Nevertheless it stands for me as one of the most important book in my life: The Father and His Family, by E.W. Kenyon. This book gave me the first true narrative of the fall of man, why Christ came, our redemption and most importantly, who I am in Christ today as a result of the work of Christ. It is written in very simple English and helped shaped my theological direction for the next 15 years. Kenyon is very controversial for his oversimplification of faith and his understanding of Death Burial and Resurrection of Christ and how central this is to all Christian truth. I am including this, at risk of being branded a heretic, because of the importance it had in my personal journey.

My second book is one that I re-read almost every year. It is A.W. Tozer’s, “The Knowledge of the Holy.” This is a devotional approach to the Attributes of God. Each chapter opens with a prayer and flows from this devotional style into the deepest things that the human mind has ever been allowed to penetrate. He takes us as far as we can go where reason must go and then bow at the feet of the Unknowable God. He teaches God’s Attributes in various categories and yet helps us see that in God there are no categories. This is not a book that panders to an academic or overly theological style. It is almost a prayer and prophecy that travels through the revelation of scripture and ends in worship of this Transcendent person we call God our Father. Unlike my last book this is a must read for every Christian Educator.

I am going to give you a number 3 only because this book has changed so many lives in some many different ways. I have used it as a textbook for Christian studies not so much for all of the content of the book but more importantly because of how it trains the reader how to think about theology, ourselves and God. So my number three is “Mere Christianity” by one of the greatest Christian authors of all time, C.S. Lewis. If you haven’t read and absorbed his thought and style then you are missing some key thinking processes that every Christian Educator must have.

Alright, next week I hope to have at least one or two of your all time important reads in the broad category of Christian Theology. Please email us your comments and thoughts on today’s podcast. Also, if you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.