One of the basic tasks for an effective teacher is equipping the students with the resources they need to study the subject matter further independently.
This is why a prominent feature of my youth retreat plan is the sharing of practical information concerning habit formation.
The literature on this topic is fascinating and has been growing in recent years.
There's not much that is specifically Christian in this realm though.
James K. A. Smith touches on habits broadly in several of his books, connecting habits to character development and spirituality. Richard Foster's classic, Celebration of Discipline, has some practical advice concerning spiritual disciplines, but nothing which addresses habit formation as such. A few Christian authors have regurgitated some of the habit formation wisdom from secular books - like Justin Earley does in The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction - but then they sometimes run counter to that wisdom in places.
The gold standard in the study of habit formation is squarely in the secular realm: James Clear's Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones. It has currently sold an astounding 25 million copies worldwide. Obviously, people are finding it useful and passing recommendations to friends and family. Clear's work was built on a foundation laid by Charles Duhigg in the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Others have contributed bits and pieces to the habit conversation, such as B. J. Fogg in Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.
I plan to teach the most useful insights regarding habit formation from these books during the retreat (alongside the material on the narrative framework of the Bible) in hopes that by the end of the retreat, the students will have skills which will improve the chances that they will establish a daily Bible reading habit.
That's the goal anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment