Leaders Book Summaries
This is a guest post by Dave Frederick, Lead Pastor of the Vineyard of DuPage in Carol Stream, Illinois. In addition to being pastor, he has a service designed to assist pastors who, like me, struggle to keep up with the reading we should do. Dave explains that service in this post. My hope is that this is helpful. (Just so you know, this is not an advertisement. I didn’t charge anything for this post. I simply believe in the product.)
Here is a post from Dave Frederick:
Most of my life I’ve heard that “Leaders are Readers,” and I believe that. I also believe that if I was going to put a bumper sticker on my car it would say, “so many books, so little time.” I love to read, and know I should, but life is busy and it can be challenging to find the time. But—it is essential if I am going to keep growing.
One option is to read book summaries instead of whole books. They allow you to invest in your own development, and the leaders around you, easily and economically. Here are 6 benefits to reading summaries:
- Book Summaries are roughly 12 pages vs. 200-300 for the average book. The average reader will take 5-6 hours to read a book, but only 15-20 minutes to read a summary. And “the Nutshell,” a summary of the summary, is only two pages!
- Book summaries cost less. A monthly subscription to LBS is $6.95/month, or $.23/day. Even buying used books at Amazon costs a lot more than that. LBS publishes 30 summaries/year…you do the math.
- I get access to both Christian and secular authors, and get to read more broadly than I would otherwise have time for.
- Book summaries are a great way to resource your leaders. I can seldom get my leaders to read a whole book; it’s easy to get them to read a short summary.
- Book summaries help you learn more. A Carnegie Mellon study showed that people who read good summaries actually retain more of what they read than people who read the whole book. And isn’t that the point?
- Summaries allow me to screen the actual books I do read, so I make sure I am using my reading time for maximum benefit.
In a nutshell, I can learn more, in less time, for a lower cost, by reading summaries, and I can resource my leaders in a way that actually works.
If you’re interested, go to www.studyleadership.com and check it out. Readers of this blog can get their first month free when they subscribe (use Promo Code “Grace”). (Note: there is now a church subscription that allows you to put as many leaders on your subscription as you want for one low price).
