{"id":104,"date":"2012-12-20T16:08:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T16:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/reading-widely\/"},"modified":"2016-07-28T03:01:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T08:01:48","slug":"reading-widely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"Reading Widely"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>One of the things which I think is so important in a ministry mindset is a big picture mentality. I wish I had one. But I don\u2019t. For that reason I need to read, a lot.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<b>Reading widely is important because everyone with whom you come in contact has a different background.<\/b> (Surprise, surprise, not everyone likes what you like. Not everyone views life like you do. They like what I like. Obviously.) If you want to make connections, guide conversations, and build meaningful relationships, you need to know something about the person to whom you are speaking.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<b>Reading widely allows you to converse with others.<\/b> You probably don\u2019t have the time to take a course, get a job, or learn a skill of the area of interest of everyone you come in contact with. But you could have a broader base to make connections. That is where reading comes in. You may have never served in Vietnam, but you could read a book by someone who did. You may have never led a Fortune 500 company, but you could read a book by someone who has. You may never have learned to to knit, but&#8230;plead ignorance.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<b>Reading widely can open up new areas of interest for you.<\/b> Here are several areas in which I have found it helpful to dawdle.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<ol>\n<li>History &#8211; Some of my favorites are \u201cUndaunted Courage\u201d and \u201cBand of Brothers\u201d by Ambrose. \u201cUnbroken\u201d by Hillenbrand was helpful as well.<\/li>\n<li>Business &#8211; Nancy Duarte has written some great books on business presentations. Podcasts and blogs are abundant (later post).<\/li>\n<li>Pop Culture &#8211; We normally check out audio books and listen to them at night or on trips. We listened to a couple of the Percy Jackson books (ok, but there are definitely better ones out there)<\/li>\n<li>Sports &#8211; if you are part of a league, group, or exercise club, read what they are talking about.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things which I think is so important in a ministry mindset is a big picture mentality. I wish I had one. But I don\u2019t. For that reason I need to read, a lot. Reading widely is important &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=104\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34kFn-1G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7064,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/7064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}