Overstatement

Few places have collected more dust in recent years than that attic at the parsonage and the church library. This is true of my parsonage attic and our church library, but is also practically universally true of all parsonages and libraries. Dan Dick recently reflected on this reality across Methodism, and his thoughts inspired me to think about our library situation.

Another thing parsonage attics and libraries have in common: they are full of antiques. When I look through our library (right next to my office, on our neglected second floor) I don’t find many books written in the last year. In fact, I don’t find many books written in the last thirty years.

Our library used to be well maintained. The books there represent a respectable collection – for 1970. But since then, the library has been in decline (with a few efforts at reform along the way). I can only think of one or two times over the last few years that anyone has asked to use our library, as a library. Now it is a place for the occasional meeting and the collection of dust.

Dan’s observations describe our situation well:

Church libraries are odd little repositories for an eclectic and uncritical assemblage of writings and ideas. Many churches do little or nothing with their libraries, and in fact in about one-in-ten the last new title was added sometime in the late 1970s (usually by Billy Graham or Robert Schuller). Only about one-in-three church libraries I visit is “active” in the sense of people actually borrowing and returning books, new titles being added regularly, and some kind of organization and display of featured titles employed.

Growing up, we used to joke that Methodists were Baptist that read books. I wonder if we could still make that claim. Given the shaky state of libraries in Hartford generally, I wonder if anyone reads books in our community. It seems to me that a well run, well staffed, technologically savvy library would be a great tool – not only for our congregation to grow in faith, but for our community as a whole. Is it possible that in an urban context, a well run library could be a mission project?

Reading is a great joy of my life. It is also a source of power. Reading makes us larger than we were. Reading invites us to grow, to learn, to be amused, to laugh, and to expand our understanding of others. As libraries are being quickly transformed by technology, perhaps now is a time to revisit our library, and ask how it might serve the needs of our community.