Welcome again to my blog, “The Faithful Librarian.” My name is Garrett Trott, and I am an individual striving to manifest a statement made by Abraham Kuyper (1998): “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” (p. 461). I aim to be a “faithful librarian,” and this blog explores what the profession of librarianship might look like as a domain under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I launched this blog in the fall of 2021 and kept it active for about 18 months. I am relaunching it in the fall of 2024, following an 18-month hiatus. Perhaps first, I should explain why I stopped it. I originally developed this blog to understand how my faith in Jesus Christ impacts the profession of librarianship. One can integrate faith into one’s profession in many ways. In my original launch of this blog, I hoped to provide an opportunity to write about my understanding of faith integration. Secondly, I was hopeful that these entries might spur dialogue. After looking for more writing opportunities, I found myself flooded with them. I found it was not nearly as challenging to find writing opportunities as I thought it might be. Secondly, while my blog entries sparked some dialogue, I had naively hoped for more. I stopped the blog because I felt it had failed, and with numerous writing opportunities, I lacked the motivation to keep it going. This scenario raises the question: What drives me to restart this blog?

Is anyone out there familiar with Bill Hybels’ book entitled Axioms? It was required reading for my doctoral program, and it’s one of those books that struck me the first time I read it, hitting me even harder each time I return to it. In one of the entries, Hybels talks about vision: “painting the picture passionately.” Hybels notes how foolish it must have been for John Adams to boldly declare his vision for the development of the United States or for William Wilberforce to continually lobby the British parliament to abolish slavery. However, history notes that the work spurred by these two individuals transformed many components of life.

I appreciate Hybels’ discussion of passion because he realizes how easy it would be for someone to read his examples and say, “I have passion, but my passion is not like Adams’ or Wilberforce’s; it is on something much smaller.” Later in this section, Hybels lists several areas of passion that are on a much smaller scale and states, “…when God finally brings clarity and certainty of vision in a leader’s life, everything changes for the better” (Hybels, 2008, 30, emphasis in original). I am in enthusiastic agreement with Hybels. God has placed me in the profession of librarianship, and my passion is to further understand how I can glorify God through it. The purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts regarding what that might look like. I truly hope, as Hybels notes, that in so doing, everything might change for the better.

While my primary interest is exploring how God can be glorified through librarianship, I hope that others benefit from this. If a particular dynamic of an entry intrigues you, use the responses to start a dialogue. I would love to discuss further how you see faith interacting with the profession of librarianship.

Through my experiences in education, I have learned that humility is a critical ingredient to learning. In a podcast, Nathan Finn, when talking about history, summarized this very well by stating that epistemological humility is an essential part of learning and growing because we live in the “murky middle.” Finn (2024) notes that while God is present and not silent, Christians don’t have special revelatory information about the inner mind of the Trinity, allowing us to have a perfect understanding of our disciplines. In fact, Finn (2024) notes our understanding of this should drive Christians to epistemic humility. I hope this is reflected in this blog.

As an individual of faith, it should be no surprise that there are some components of faith, belief, and doctrine to which I hold firmly. Subsequently, this discussion involves the application of these components to the profession of librarianship. As readers of this blog may disagree with my beliefs, there may be disagreement over many facets of my understanding of what it means to be a faithful librarian. If you disagree with my experience of being a faithful librarian, please begin a dialogue by responding to the entry. As faith can manifest in and through one’s profession in many ways, I expect (and hope) that some of my thoughts will spur dialogue. While I cannot deny that my motivation for creating this blog is to share what I know, a second motivation is to use it as an opportunity to learn from you, interact, and connect with others who desire to glorify God through librarianship and manifest their faith in their profession. Subsequently, I encourage participation through your comments.

Soli Deo gloria!

Works Cited

Finn, N. (2024). On calling, faculty development, history, and virtue formation with Dr. Nathan Finn (3) [Podcast]. https://iace.education/podcast

Hybels, Bill. (2008). Leadership axioms: Powerful leadership proverbs. Zondervan.

Kuyper, A. (1998). Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader. Eerdmans.