If you’re like me, you are more than happy to receive amazon.com gift vouchers for Christmas. While others may love their cars, guitars, guns or fishing rods, many preachers are in love with their libraries. If you, like me, are a closet bibliophile, this post will make you uncomfortable. Books are a real blessing and a visit to a country where pastors have access to nothing soon puts our personal libraries into perspective. Be sure to be thankful for what you have, but don’t be obsessive:

Don’t hold your books too tightly. If God has blessed you with more than a handful of books then you are very blessed. But don’t let them sit dormant on your shelves as a monument to your past spending. Let them do their work. Share books with people that are motivated to learn from them. Share your books, let them be an extension of your ministry, and if a good book is not returned or is damaged . . . just replace it. It’s not a big deal!

Become passionate about giving books away. Scan your shelves for books that you have outgrown and no longer refer to. I don’t mean trash or heresy that should be recycled like a free newspaper. But good books that are not pertinent for your study any more. Find someone who would benefit and give them the book. Take advantage of your book awareness and become a distributor of free books. You know quality books. You also have opportunities to promote and push books. Now with online sellers you can find a quantity of a good book for cheap and push them from the pulpit. Either give them away, or ask for donations to allow you to replace them with others to give away. Sometimes your free book fund will be up, sometimes down, but if books are changing lives, you are up!