Winning & Losing Blog Posts!

This blog tells me how many reads each of the posts gets. Looking at the stats inevitably invites introspective insecurity... "Why didn’t they like that one??" / "Whom did I offend?" / "Was it boring?"

Of course, it’s a funny old unpredictable thing - who will read a blog post. I guess it depends so much on when I happen to link to it on social media / how busy people are that day / countless other factors. Plus, I don’t actually know quite how the Blogger "read count" works - does it register if someone reads the first two lines and then things, "Meh, this isn’t worth my time?" And then there’s the fact that people might not click on a link because the title or the picture is a bit lame, but actually they’d enjoy it if they did - who knows?!

Anyway, at the end of the day, I’m honestly not that fussed. I find the process of thinking and writing helpful for myself, and if a handful of people sometimes find what I write interesting or thought-provoking or encouraging then I’m very glad!

But because it does seem to be a bit of lottery who might see what when, I thought I’d announce the winners and losers as it currently stands! Idea being - maybe you just missed one or two that might take your fancy (or maybe you purposefully avoided some - and that’s fine!). Here they are:

Top 5:

1. Do Not Lose Heart (16 April 2016) - emerging from a discouraging experience.
2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Questions to Ask a Returning Missionary (31 July 16) - written during home assignment in the UK.
3. I Will Love and I Will Miss (11 June 2016) - preparing to travel home for a bit.
4. Why You Must Unsubscribe From Emails (20 January 2016) - a slight change of tack caused by a book on productivity and experiencing different cultural approaches to technology.
5. When I Am Weak: Humidity and Humility (10 October 2016) - from the crucible of an extremely trying hot season!

Bottom 5: (aww...)

1. My Plan To Read (19 December 2016) - most recent, about a reading plan I’ve enjoyed.
2. Lord of All (30 September 2015) - my second ever blog post! Speaking truth to myself as I prepared to leave for the Gambia.
3. Ebenezer Who?! (16 October 2015) - giving thanks for God’s faithfulness upon landing on African soil.
4. Best Book on the Gambia? (8 December 2016) - also v.recent, some books that have helped me for life and ministry here.
5. Setting Sail (2 October 2015) - preparing to leave English seas on my cargo ship to Africa!

So - take or leave, to your heart’s content!

My Plan to Read

© freeimages.com

So many books, so little time. This dawned on me a few years back (hardly revolutionary) - I’ll only read a TINY proportion of the books out there that I could read. 

Furthermore, I simply won’t read as much as I’d like to, and could really benefit from, unless I plan to. I began thinking of various books I was keen to read, of a few different types, and began to keep a list, planning one or two books ahead.

This year (2016) I went up a gear. I set myself a full reading list for the first time. Inspired by blogger Tim Challies’ mammoth ambition to read 104 books this year in his 2016 Reading Challenge (crazy...) I decided to aim for 26. Why 26? It averages at one per fortnight, which I thought, if I put my mind to a few disciplines, I could probably achieve.

Challies offers four levels of challenge, depending on what you fancy: (1) The Light Reader (13 books); (2) The Avid Reader (26 books); (3) The Committed Reader (52 books); (4) The Obsessed Reader (104 books).

The top tips I took from Challies’ blog were:

• Write a list of books to read - a target to aim at makes a big difference.
• Tick them off as you go - obviously pleasing! 
• Vary the types of books you read - Challies suggests choosing books to read from various interesting categories like, “A book by an author you’ve never read" / “A book with a fruit of the Spirit in the title” / “A book you’ve started but haven’t finished”. I like that thoughtfulness, but decided to opt for a slightly simpler approach. (Partly also because I had quite a few books on my shelf that I just wanted to read!) So I picked 5 broad categories, and aimed to read a few in each. (By the way, I should confess that I’ve never really got into reading fiction. I’d like to one day!) So my categories have been biography, theology, holiness / life, (Bible) exposition, and Africa. 

I’ve really enjoyed it. Knowing what I’m aiming at (one book per fortnight, on average) hugely helps me to sit down and read. I appreciate that I have the advantage of a quite flexible routine, and largely managing my own time. That certainly helps. But I suspect many people could read more, as they’d often like to, if they put a few habits in place. Some small things I’ve sought to do to help are:

• Aiming to “fast” from my phone from 9pm - 9am. That way, I’m much more likely to read a bit before bed, and to get going well with time with the Lord in the morning (the Bible being far more valuable than any other books). Plus, I think it helps you to sleep.
• Deciding that I’d be content to have several books on the go at once. I reckon it makes good sense. It means that last thing at night, I can read a couple of pages of that lighter, biographical / more devotional book. When I’ve scheduled in time for reading during the day I can make progress on a heavier book that requires harder work. When I’m enjoying a day off at the beach, I’ll take another one. 
• Proposing to read some books with other people. This just keeps the experience of reading varied and more interesting. So I’ve recently been meeting with two guys here weekly to read one book together. And I’m currently reading another book over the phone with a friend back home.

So - I recommend having a plan! As we near the end of December, why not decide on a challenge to set yourself for 2017? If you begin thinking about it now, and begin writing a list, you might be quite excited about it when 1 January rolls around. You could aim to begin writing a list in those funny few days between Christmas and New Year...

Life is short, and there are millions of books we could read - many very good, many not so good. We simply won’t read that many of them! So which ones will you read? It’s worth choosing well isn’t it?

My reading list

For what it’s worth - if you’re interested - here’s what I drew up for 2016. I’ve sat fairly loose to the order in which I read them, though I try to keep a variety on the go at once.

Biographies
✓ John Newton on the Christian Life, Tony Reinke
✓ John Paton, John Paton
✓ Silhouettes and Skeletons - Charles Simeon, ed. John Benton
✓ Messengers of Ethiopia, Dick McLellan
✓ Bound for Burma: Adoniram Judson, J & G Benge (audiobook)

Exposition
✓ Jesus and his Friends, Don Carson
✓ Look to the Rock, Alec Motyer
☐ Acts: The Church Afire, by R. Kent Hughes [reading now]

Holiness / Life
✓ Going the Distance, Peter Brain
✓ The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges
✓ Zeal without Burnout, Christopher Ash
✓ Living in the Light (Money, Sex and Power), John Piper
✓ Do More Better, Tim Challies
✓ Not By Sight, Jon Bloom
☐ Prone to Wander, Barbara Duguid [reading now]

Theology
✓ Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, Andreas Köstenberger / Peter O'Brien
✓ Works: Volume 2, Jonathan Edwards
✓ The Book of the Covenant, Bernard Howard
✓ Christ our Life, Michael Reeves
✓ Prophetic from the Centre, Don Carson
✓ What’s the Mission of the Church?, Kevin De Young / Gary Gilbert
☐ Jesus the Son of God, Don Carson [reading now]
☐ His Love Endures Forever, Garry Williams [reading now]

Africa
✓ The Unseen Face of Islam, Bill Musk
✓ Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo
✓ Contextualization in the New Testament, Dean Fleming


I’m almost going to make it… I’m going to predict now that 2 will end up not quite complete by the end of the year. No bother.

As the year has gone by, I’ve also kept a list of what I hope to read next year… So I’m excited about that too!

What could you aim for in 2017? Happy reading!

Best book on the Gambia?

I love having visitors. And I’m excited that a lovely British medical student I know, from previous ministry in the UK, is coming here to the Gambia for his 6-week medical elective. He’ll work at the nearby MRC (Medical Research Centre), which specialises in research into and treatment of malaria. (Fact: It's the second biggest employer in the country after G4S.)

This student thoughtfully asked me recently what my top book to read on the Gambia would be. Good question! I couldn’t answer it - instead I thought of four. If you're interested to know what I suggested, read on.

Although I do like reading (quite a lot), I’m certainly not an expert on the Gambia, or literature relating to the Gambia. But, every few books, I do try to read a book that will be fairly directly useful or applicable to me for life and ministry here.

(I might explain in another post how I schedule my reading…)

So back to the student’s question: “What would be your top book to read on the Gambia?"

I gave him 4 suggestions (and I’ve just thought of a 5th!) -

1. African Friends and Money Matters, David Maranz (SIL International, 2nd ed. 2015)

The (Christian) author worked in neighbouring Senegal so is very familiar with the culture(s) of this part of West Africa. The book is a fascinating series of observations about "micro-economics", i.e. how people use money in everyday life, and particularly how that relates to the way Africans relate to each other. It's very perceptive, gives a really good insight into the way Africans think, and has often proved to be accurate in my experience here. It’s perhaps surprising how significantly people's attitude towards money (or, more importantly here, a culture’s attitude towards money) effects the way people relate to one another.

2. We Have Toiled All Night, Martha Frederiks (Boekencentrum, 2003)

This is an unusual and brilliant resource. The Dutch author spent a while here in the Gambia as a missionary through the Methodist Church. She took it upon herself (I think it was a PhD project) to research and write up a history of Christianity in the Gambia - that's what the book is. It's very comprehensive and very enlightening. There’s so much in there but one lasting memory is the extremely humbling recollection of early missionaries to the Gambia, whose life expectancy here was about 2 years (primarily because of danger and the tropical diseases with no vaccinations or healthcare). It wasn’t for nothing that West Africa became known as “White man’s grave”; they really did come with their belongings packed in coffins. What really blew me away? They kept coming. They knew the deal - and they kept coming. They kept dying. Others kept coming. The only downside about the book is that it's very hard to get hold of, as only a few copies were printed! I was fortunate to find one online through an obscure second-hand seller. 

3. Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo (Penguin, 2010)

A short and fascinating / heartbreaking wake-up call. With her African (she’s Zambian) and economic (she works for the World Bank) experience, Moyo unleashes a demolishing critique of the economics of the vast aid project to Africa of the last 60 years. She convincingly shows why it's not only not helped, but actually made things far worse. It’s full of devastating statistics. But it’s not just a cry of pity. She suggests an economically robust set of better alternatives. (It made me wish I’d studied economics at school…) 

4. The State of Africa, Martin Meredith (Simon & Schuster, 2013)

A longer classic by an experienced writer and journalist. It makes for often tragic reading about the often sorry story of independence in African nations in the last 60 years. It’s important but often depressing reading (I only made it half way through!), yet he avoids simplistic criticisms. I should really get back to it some day.

5. Touching the Soul of Islam, Bill Musk (Monarch, 2005)

Dr. Musk is a very thoughtful and engaging writer with significant experience of Christian work in a North African context. This is an excellent introduction to the thought-world of Islam. Also highly recommended is his The Unseen Face of Islam, which explores the world of ‘Folk Islam’, i.e. every-day, real-life practices of Muslims, sometimes interestingly different from, yet coexistent with, official Islamic teaching.


So, thank God for good books - for writers, publishers, distributors, and people who taught us how to read.  Whilst #2 above may be particularly specific to here, I’d certainly recommend reading any of the others, for valuable insight into the worlds of Africa and Islam, which effect our world so significantly.