Dive into a book

“I enjoyed your sermon this morning, but it was just too long. In this day and age, with shorter attention spans, you just can't preach for longer than 20 minutes. For all our sakes, you just have to make it shorter. Anything longer than that is counter-productive!”

Ever heard this line as a preacher? Or said it to a preacher?

Be careful who you say it to. One preacher I know greets this kind of comment with a rejoinder like this: “You don't want long sermons? You can't stand to listen to God's word being expounded for longer than 20 minutes? Then clearly you have a spiritual problem, and the only solution is for me to pray for you. And to preach even longer sermons—since you obviously need more of the word of God!”

There is a similar sentiment abroad about books—that nobody reads any more, and that we might as well dispense with books in favour of DVDs, MP3s, websites, blog posts, short articles and (if we really stretch it) 16-page booklets.

Strangely, however, book industry sales figures show that general sales are actually up (not down) over the past decade, and that out of the top ten best-selling books of that decade, most were large and fat (such as those featuring the exploits of a boy wizard).

It is strange too that the flavoursome preachers of the moment (Mark Driscoll, for example) often preach for an hour or more. In fact, nearly every great preacher I've listened to over the past 25 years has preached for at least 45 minutes.

What's going on here? What do popular long sermons and best-selling fat books have in common? What is it that still entices the Attention Deficit Generation to immerse themselves in them?

Immersion. I think that's the key. At the end of a really excellent one-hour sermon you're hardly aware that any time has passed. The same is true of those good books we ‘lose ourselves’ in.

A good book is a baptism, a soaking, a swim. You immerse yourself in the mind of a writer, listening to his story or following his argument, and emerge out the other side dripping. A good book welcomes you aboard, and takes you on a train journey through such interesting countryside and with such good service along the way that you hardly notice the time it has taken to arrive at the destination.

The recent revolutions in communication haven't sapped the human mind of its capacity for and delight in immersion. We still enjoy sustained engagement with a story or idea or argument. My 12- and 13-year-old sons, who are supposedly even more distracted and attention-challenged than Gen Y, and who see with their fingers and hear with their noses for all I know, still seem to have no trouble maintaining intense concentration for five-hour stretches as they conduct Darkwinged Sorties of Doom into the Realm of Aztargoth (or whatever they're currently doing in the World of Warcraft). Nor can I stop them reading fat thrillers late at night when the light is supposed to be out.

People still love to be immersed. The challenge, of course, is to provide something worth being immersed in.

Enter Matthias Media, like a Darkwinged Sortie of Doom. We haven't given up publishing books, some of them even approaching thickish, because we still believe that books are incredibly useful resources for Christian growth and ministry. Books allow a sustained and immersive argument to take place. Like a powerful long sermon, they bring the Word to bear at length, and minds are changed.

When was the last time you immersed yourself in a good Christian book? Or used a good book in ministry to make progress with someone?

Here's a challenge for the month ahead. Choose one of the following three recent releases from Matthias Media, and think about who you know who could really benefit from them:

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• The Future of Jesus, by Peter Jensen (ideal for a thoughtful non-Christian)
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• Faith, by Bryson Smith (ideal for a newish Christian)
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• Living with the Underworld, by Peter Bolt (ideal for any Christian).
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After you've made your choice, buy two copies, and pass one on to your friend as a gift. If he asks you what it's for, just say: “I thought it might be nice to go for a swim together”.

To find out more about these books, including sample chapters, go to www.matthiasmedia.com.au.