In setting up Wilson House, we are setting up the kind of library that we wanted for ourselves.
Being keen readers, we read a lot of books—and thus we have to buy a lot of books. Some of these books are books we want to own, but most of them are books we’d be quite happy to borrow, read, then return. Where could we go to access books in this way?
The conventional answer to this question is the local library. We are quite blessed here in Armidale, since we have both a public library and the library at the University of New England to borrow from. And yet, neither one really scratches our itch, since we read a lot of Christian books, which is something neither of these libraries have much of in their collections. The public library is established to serve the general interests of the public and, unfortunately, Christian books are something of a niche interest today. But what if it were otherwise — what kinds of libraries would we have in a world where Christians are the reading public?
We began to wonder what the local library would look like in a Christian culture. On the one hand, it would surely provide many of those ‘niche’ books that Christians like to read: Christian living and devotional books, theological and philosophical works, books for pastors of churches, and books for kids growing up in the faith. These are the kinds of books available at conventional Christian bookshops.
And yet, a local library in a Christian culture would also have a wide selection of books on all sorts of matters: Christians still read about history, politics, the arts, sciences and all sorts of other things. And as lovers of the Greatest Story, we would expect Christians to have a taste for good stories of all kinds.
Hence, Wilson House: the local library for Christian culture.
We hope, with God’s help, to grow this library over the years so that it becomes a huge treasure trove to the Christian community living in and around Armidale—and perhaps even further afield.
We believe that God’s people need easy and affordable access to lots of good books for all areas of their lives and in all kinds of vocations. We hope that Wilson House will be a great blessing in this regard.