“When you leave seminary,” a professor had said, “you should have a trunkful of personal belongings and a U-Haul full of books.”
I chuckled, but the chuckle was laden with guilt-guilt over my meager library and guilt over spending money on books. Not that I didn’t like books. I loved them. But having a love affair with books is different from actually building a library. My wife and I were just starting married life, complete with bills. How could we afford our living expenses, pay tuition and still buy books? We simply couldn’t.
When the day came to move to our first full-time ministry, we did load a U-Haul-with our personal belongings. My books didn’t even fill the back seat of our ’72 Hornet.
The desire to seriously work on my library remained frustrated early in the pastorate. One child was born the first year and a second was soon on the way. My library lay dormant.
With inadequate resources for sermon preparation, I found my creativity suffering. For example, while working on a message about heaven, I could locate only a few pages in a theological text in my study. A trip to a Christian bookstore miles away turned up just one brief paperback. Even a simple matter like a historical or scientific illustration involved driving sixteen miles to look in the public library’s encyclopedia.
By the time I left this first ministry, I was hungry for any type of book. I needed literature, history, philosophy, biography, a set of encyclopedias, dictionaries, better commentaries, and books of sermons.
Then one bright spring day I came across a Salvation Army Thrift Store downtown. Curious, I went inside. I couldn’t believe it. In one section I found about four thousand used books, divided by subject. Most were priced at fifty cents or less. Entire sets of encyclopedias were going for ten dollars. In an hour I was out the door with a shopping bag full of a variety of needed books, all for seven dollars.
I began to investigate other ways to locate used books at a reasonable cost. To my surprise, they were all around me.
The public library held two used-book sales a year. My first trip to one of these sales was a disappointment. Arriving at the sale fifteen minutes after it opened, I missed out on most of the choice books. But even so, I picked up twenty books of biography and history, plus several commentaries. By arriving earlier the next time, I was more successful. My purchase? About fifty volumes for twelve dollars.
Other groups like Rotary or Lions held used-book sales as fund raisers, and I often discovered a retiring pastor had donated significant works to these sales. I’ve found works by Machen, Tillich, Spurgeon, Tournier, and Bonhoeffer, all between ten cents and a dollar. Others by writers unfamiliar to me have turned out to be prized finds.
A few good books can be unearthed in used-book stores. These booksellers know the value of their product, however, and their prices reflect that. If a book is still in print, it is often priced at 50 percent of retail. Sometimes this price is higher than those found in mail-order catalogs. But occasionally I have located a classic out-of-print book that is worth the price.
These three sources have been crucial in the building of my library. Other pastors strengthen their libraries through discount mail-order houses, the generosity of retiring pastors, and strategic entries on their Christmas and birthday lists.
By now I have a tiny U-Haul of books. Building a library, formerly a source of anxiety and guilt, has become an enjoyable pastime. On vacation or at a conference, I’ll sneak away to visit the local book dealers. Or when I’m home, I’ll take an hour to browse the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores. Discovering treasures new and old has become great fun-and affordable.
– Bing Wall
Calvary Baptist Church
Fort Dodge, Iowa
Leadership Summer 1987 p. 106
Copyright © 1987 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
