Recently I was sent the following quote from Oswald Sander’s Spiritual Leadership.

“If a man is known by the company he keeps, so also his character is reflected in the books he reads. A leader’s reading is the outward expression of his inner hungers and aspirations.” (104)

How true it is! It is for this reason that in interviews (for pastors, professors, and other jobs) I always want to hear the man list authors he likes to read and books that have been influential to him. If one’s reading is a steady diet of growth technique books (for example), you likely do not have a theologian shepherd- which is what a church needs. One’s reading may be (indeed should be) broad, but there ought to be a clear theme of thinking deeply on the truths of Scripture.