by Doug Kutilek
- Keep a journal to record your thoughts, life events, ideas, notable quotations, plans, and the like. This will serve you well for review and reflection. And go back from time to time and re-read what you have written. It will remind you of things that ever-so-quickly slip from memory.
- Build a good personal library of reference books. A library need not be large to be adequate, assuming it has been well chosen and well used. A collection of 100 good reference volumes will serve a man for a lifetime.
- Keep a list of all books you read, including author, title, date, total pages, and an evaluation of the book, noting good and bad points. For every book I read, I make my own index of whatever was particularly noteworthy. Tell me what books a man has read, and which ones he values most, and I will tell you what he is.
- Compile a list of books you need or want to read, and then actually set about to read them. Set an annual goal of reading you are capable of, and then set it a bit higher, to challenge yourself (my goals: 50 books a year, or 1,000 pages per month). Of course, it is better to read fewer good books well, than to merely gorge your mind with reading. Get and read the best books on whatever topic, and don’t waste time on second-rate works. Constantly be on the lookout for areas of deficiency in your personal knowledge. Ask yourself, “What is it I ought to know, but do not?” and then seek to repair the defect.
- Begin a chronological list of every Bible message you teach or preach, noting text (or topic), date, place, occasion, and attendance. This list will, among other things, keep you from giving the same message to the same audience and, negatively, it will show you what subjects you have neglected in your preaching. Experience has taught me the necessity of typing every outline on computer.
- Read well-selected periodicals. I receive about six to eight periodicals, both print and electronic. Some I read all the way through, others just what interests me. Among those I read are Acts & Facts from the Institute of Creation Research and The Creation Daily from Creation Ministries International. I also recommend reading the local newspaper.
- Prepare a plan of what you want to do ministry-wise for the next 5, 10, 20, and 50 years (subject always to mid-course changes). Then write out the means necessary to reach these goals. Having specific aims, goals, or direction always motivates me to try just a bit harder and achieve a bit more.
- Purpose in your heart to study and learn as opportunity presents itself (or you make your own opportunity) at least a modicum of Greek and Hebrew (sufficient to use grammars, lexicons, and technical commentaries) plus a modern foreign language or two (Spanish is the easiest for Americans). Knowledge of languages, besides facilitating Bible study, will greatly improve your knowledge and mastery of English and enhance your writing and speaking style.
- Write regularly — topical studies, technical research papers, devotional articles, etc. Then go back and revise, correct, and improve (and keep a list of anything that gets published). The spoken word is ephemeral at best; the written word is more permanent: “The writing that men do lives after them.”
- Keep a daily and an annual list of your Bible reading, recording any chapters completed. At the end of the year, I compile the numbers and examine them. This helps me evaluate my Bible reading. Again, reading intensively (closely and carefully) is better than merely reading extensively. It would also be worthwhile over a period of years to read through several of the better modern English versions — NASB, ESV, HCSB, etc. — regardless of what version you regularly use.
- Begin a topical filing system for a collection of clippings, articles, etc. on topics likely to come up in your ministry or that interest you.
- Become an expert through reading and study in one or more areas that interest you, including at least one area of science — I have made special study of Spurgeon, Baptist history, Bible versions, the American Civil War, scientific creationism and apologetics, trees and agriculture, and linguistics.
In all of these suggestions, there is the common thread of progress in usefulness, growth in knowledge, efficiency in ministry, and avoiding that deadly sin of stagnation.