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We would all agree that reading on the internet is not the same as reading a book: the actual process of reading is different.

When you’re reading a book, you’re looking at absorbing the information more carefully. There are no ads or animations on the page, you can’t immediately pause and check your email, and unless your purpose is to skim through the book you’re less inclined to skim read.

The always thoughtful Trevor Cairney talks more about this in Literacy, families and learning - he even quotes Jakob Nielsen, and then goes beyond Nielsen’s points.

Brian Clark at Copy blogger has an excellent post entitled How to Read, which suggests that there are a few different approaches you can take in both your selection of titles, and your approach to reading.

Of course, as Rach notes, it wouldn’t be new year’s without making resolutions to read through the bible in a year. There are a number of ways to do this: for a good starting point, try this list of Bible Reading Plans. If you’re aiming to get a little more out of it than just the effort of turning all the pages, or running your eyes over all the words, you could try the techniques listed in the more uncomfortably named Meditating on God’s Word.

Yesterday I had a few of my (year 7-9) Sunday school kids over to watch Kung Fu Panda on dvd. We made some popcorn, drank soft drink, and in general it was a good afternoon.

Trying to have a discussion afterwards, I asked them if they could see any Christian, or other messages in what they had seen. The majority response seemed to be that there were no such messages, as it was “only a movie”.

Though in reality we moved from there to playing wii sports, if I had been better prepared, and if they had been in a better mood to discuss things, I would have tried to explain that there’s no such thing as “only a movie”.

Movies provide one of the last points of shared histories that people can have. You might have nothing in common with someone, but you can both talk about how you reacted to “the usual suspects”.

Movies, too, often have underlying messages of redemption or even a saviour character: sometimes a Christian message can be taken away, at other times, a movie captures the zeitgeist of the time, and helps the viewer understand what the people around them are thinking.

In the case of the PG-rated “Kung Fu Panda”, there are messages of what is important in life, of what happens when you die, of the importance of hard work, but of the greater importance if being passionate and funny. We see that it’s ok to ignore your parents if you’re chasing a dream, that old people can learn from young people, and, of course, that good always triumphs over evil. How many of those messages will kids watching the film take on board? It’s not easy to say. But for parents, and people who have the repsponsibility of teaching kids, it’s worth thinking about.

Something I’m hoping to be better at this year is engaging with movies, and talking about them with other people. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this?

Tim Challies has an interview with Ryan Ferguson, a man who has some skill at the discipline, covering some tips on memorising sections of the bible.

If you’re looking for a way to read through the bible next year, you could follow along with this year of the bible.

In 2009, reformation 21 is blogging through Calvin’s Institutes (a two-volume book, written around 500 years ago that outlines the Christian faith in more detail than most other books written before or since).