A Letter from Pastor Mark - July



Dear Friends,

I would like to share with each of you a new direction that we will soon be taking regarding offering a church library.  Traditional libraries have focused on collections of physical books.  That requires a considerable amount of effort to keep the books shelved, cataloged and organized.  Traditional libraries have served us well in the past, and the library at the church is a good example of giving people good options for their Christian reading choices.

However, I think we would all agree that our world is changing rapidly, and that is true in the area of the “printed word” as well.  Many schools are moving away from physical textbooks to electronic textbooks loaded on e-readers or tablets.  Very soon future generations will envision books as something to be downloaded on an electronic device rather than a physical volume with paper pages.  

Libraries are moving toward electronic versions of books and many libraries are at least offering the choice of checking out an e-reader with a “borrowed book.”  In the near future it is quite possible that libraries will have all of their books in electronic form and stored in a web “cloud” and then you can borrow that book from the “cloud” and load it on your e-reader for a designated period of time.  This will help libraries save money and space, and the time it will take to check out a book will be reduced drastically.

If you are familiar with the online store, Amazon, and if you are a part of Amazon Prime, then you  probably already know that you can go to the Amazon “cloud” and borrow books as a part of your Amazon Prime membership.  This is definitely the wave of the future.

In order to encourage reading to deepen one’s spiritual growth, we are soon going to move our library at the church to the digital world.  Let me explain how this will happen.  Instead of offering physical books we will have a certain number of e-readers available at the church for individuals to check out.  Each of the e-readers will be stocked with offerings pertaining to  certain areas.  For example, one reader might be loaded with Christian classics.  Another reader might be loaded with offerings in the self-help or pastoral care area.  Another reader might be offerings from the Christian fiction genre.  Another reader might have offerings that focus on biblical topics.  As we have money to purchase additional digital books, we will constantly   expand the offerings that are available on each e-reader. 
It is our hope that more people will then take advantage of the offerings of       Christian-oriented literature that the church can make available.  It is also an additional hope that younger people, including teenagers and pre-adolescents, will use this virtual library more often than they do the physical library.
I am excited about this new opportunity.  I realize it is a change, but it is a change that moves us into the future and gives us a greater opportunity to expose a larger group of people within the church to Christian books.
I will give more information in the future when this digital library will be up and running and available for your use.  Stay tuned for more exciting news!!

In Christi’s Abundant Love,
Pastor Mark




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