Welcome. I am so glad that you have decided to check this list out. Before we get to it though, let me say a few words.
Leadership
1. Start With Why (Simon Sinek)
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.
Start With Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
2. Everybody Matters (Bob Chapman)
Read the book that will challenge the way you think about how to run a business and, above all, how to be an inspirational leader. Chapman and Sisodia share the lessons learned throughout the transformation of capital equipment and engineering consulting firm Barry-Wehmiller as well as Chapman’s own personal transformation as a leader.
You’ll get an insider’s view of the steps Chapman and his team undertook to create a thriving organization where making people feel valued, cared for, and an integral part of the organization’s shared purpose is the priority. You’ll be inspired and equipped with tangible actions to implement today to build an exceptional organization for tomorrow.
3. Mindset (Dr. Carol S. Dweck)
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea: the power of our mindset.
Dweck explains why it's not just our abilities and talent that bring us success, but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn't foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals, personal and professional.
4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni)
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team outlines the root causes of politics and dysfunction on the teams where you work, and the keys to overcoming them. Counter to conventional wisdom, the causes of dysfunction are both identifiable and curable. However, they don't die easily. Making a team functional and cohesive requires levels of courage and discipline that many groups cannot seem to muster.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has become the world’s most definitive source on practical information for building teams. The book's impact extends beyond business schools, churches, non-profit organizations, professional sports teams and the military.
5. Good To Great (Jim Collins)
This book addresses a single question: can a good company become a great company, and if so, how? Based on a five-year research project comparing companies that made the leap to those that did not, Good to Great shows that greatness is not primarily a function of circumstance but largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline. This book discusses concepts like Level 5 Leadership; First Who, Then What (first get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to drive it); the Hedgehog Concept, and the Flywheel.
6. Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek)
Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home feeling fulfilled. This is not a crazy, idealized notion.
Today, in many successful organizations, great leaders are creating environments in which people naturally work together to do remarkable things. In Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek, internationally bestselling author of Start With Why, investigates these great leaders from Marine Corps Officers, who don't just sacrifice their place at the table but often their own comfort and even their lives for those in their care, to the heads of big business and government - each putting aside their own interests to protect their teams.
Sinek argues that this is what it means to be a leader and asks are you a leader?
7. Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull)
Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”
8. The Vision Driven Leader (Michael Hyatt)
You know you need to prepare for the future of your organization, but the future can feel big and foreboding. How do you prepare? When will you find the time? What will the future even look like? The future of your organization doesn’t have to fill you with fear. You can lead your organization into a better, more exciting future with a clear and compelling vision.
The Vision Driven Leader will help you grow your organization using a simple, attractive, inspiring, and practical vision of the future.
Christianity/Spirituality
9. The Christian In Complete Armour (William Gurnall)
"In our judgment, the best thought-breeder in all our library. John Newton said that if he might read only one book beside the Bible, he would choose The Christian in Complete Armour." - C. H. Spurgeon
10. Finding The Power To Live - One Day At A Time (Trevor Hudson)
Finding the power to live - one day at a time is written for people who want to change. It is for those who feel the need to deepen their lives, live more freely, and find real joy.
11. The Pursuit of God (A.W. Tozer)
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” This thirst for an intimate relationship with God, claims A.W. Tozer, is not for a select few, but should be the experience of every follower of Christ.
Here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after God. Here is a book for every child of God, pastor, missionary, and Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. In The Pursuit of God, Tozer sheds light on the path to a closer walk with God.
12. Crazy Love (Francis Chan)
Have you ever wondered if we’re missing it? It’s crazy if you think about it. The God of the universe — the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and e-minor — loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.
Whether you’ve verbalized it yet or not . . . we all know something’s wrong.
Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts — it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same.
Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.
13. Every Good Endeavour (Timothy Keller)
In a work world that is increasingly competitive and insecure, people often have nagging questions: Why am I doing this work? Why is it so hard? And is there anything I can do about it?
With deep insight and often surprising advice, Keller shows readers that biblical wisdom is immensely relevant to our questions about our work. In fact, the Christian view of work—that we work to serve others, not ourselves—can provide the foundation of a thriving professional and balanced personal life. Keller shows how excellence, integrity, discipline, creativity, and passion in the workplace can help others and even be considered acts of worship—not just of self-interest.
14. Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together. Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
15. The Crucified Life (A.W. Tozer)
The apostle Paul declared in his letter to the Galatians that he had been "crucified with Christ." But what does this mean? Is this a claim every believer can and should make? The Crucified Life is a comprehensive examination of these questions, answered with the deep, biblical thinking for which Tozer was revered. "God is ingenious in developing crosses for His followers," Tozer was fond of saying. At the heart of this book, you will find a call to follow Christ to the cross and be raised to new life--a call to live the crucified life.
16. Who Is This Man? (John Ortberg)
Jesus’ impact on our world is highly unlikely, widely inescapable, largely unknown, and decidedly double-edged. It is unlikely in light of the severe limitations of his earthly life; it is inescapable because of the range of impact; it is unknown because history doesn’t connect dots; and it is doubled-edged because his followers have wreaked so much havoc, often in his name.
He is history’s most familiar figure, yet he is the man no one knows. His impact on the world is immense and non-accidental. From the Dark Ages to Post-Modernity he is the Man who won’t go away. And yet … you can miss him in historical lists for many reasons, maybe the most obvious being the way he lived his life. He did not loudly and demonstrably defend his movement in the spirit of a rising political or military leader. He did not lay out a case that history would judge his brand of belief superior in all future books.
His life and teaching simply drew people to follow him. He made history by starting in a humble place, in a spirit of love and acceptance, and allowing each person space to respond. His vision of life continues to haunt and challenge humanity. His influence has swept over history bringing inspiration to what has happened in art, science, government, medicine, and education; he has taught humans about dignity, compassion, forgiveness, and hope.
Biographical
17. The Cambridge Seven (John Pollock)
Harold Schofield, a brilliant Oxford doctor who had laboured as a missionary in China for many years, was on his knees praying, 'Lord, give me missionaries from British Universities to help in China'. The day he died, D. E. Hoste applied to Hudson Taylor for mission work in the China Inland Mission (Now Overseas Missionary Fellowship). Schofield's prayer was answered as seven Cambridge students volunteered to leave behind cosy lives of wealth and privilege to serve God in whatever way they were led.
These seven inspired thousands of others to think seriously of missionary service. Included among them was C.T. Studd, captain of England and the finest cricketer of his day - if he could give all that up, then so could anyone!
The story of these seven are an inspiration that God can take people and use them in incredible ways - if they are willing to serve. As Pollock says in his book 'Theirs is the story of ordinary men, and thus may be repeated'. Will it be repeated in your life?
18. Bonhoeffer - Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Eric Metaxas)
In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy—A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich, Metaxas presents the fullest accounting of Bonhoeffer’s heart-wrenching 1939 decision to leave the safe haven of America for Hitler’s Germany, and using extended excerpts from love letters and coded messages written to and from Bonhoeffer’s Cell 92, Metaxas tells for the first time the full story of Bonhoeffer’s passionate and tragic romance.
Readers will discover fresh insights and revelations about his life-changing months at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and about his radical position on why Christians are obliged to stand up for the Jews. Metaxas also sheds new light on Bonhoeffer’s reaction to Kristallnacht, his involvement in the famous Valkyrie plot and in “Operation 7,” the effort to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland.
Bonhoeffer gives witness to one man’s extraordinary faith and to the tortured fate of the nation he sought to deliver from the curse of Nazism. It brings the reader face to face with a man determined to do the will of God radically, courageously, and joyfully—even to the point of death. Bonhoeffer is the story of a life framed by a passion for truth and a commitment to justice on behalf of those who face implacable evil.
19. Foxes Christian Martyrs of The World (John Foxe)
Also known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs. John Foxe's famous book detailing the lives, sufferings and triumphant deaths of the early Christian and the Protestant Martyrs.
For centuries Christians have been brought up on the works of John Foxe, which, outside of the Bible itself, have been among the most widely read documents in history. Foxe's Martyrs has inspired millions to live lives of commitment in the face of persecution.
20. The Life & Diary of David Brainered (Jonathan Edwards)
The Diary and Journal of David Brainerd is of much more than merely historical interest. The first internationally recognized biography ever to be published, it has had a profound impact on successive generations of Christians around the world. Few books have done so much to promote prayer and missionary action, and it is not without good reason that it has remained in print since the great New England pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards first published it in 1749.
Between 1742 and his death in 1747 David Brainerd took the gospel to the North American Indians of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. He willingly ran any risk and accepted any hardship to fulfill his calling as a missionary. The amount of work which he achieved in such unpromising and difficult circumstances now seems almost incredible. Moreover his total dedication to the cause of making Christ known inspired the finest of missionaries who followed in his footsteps.
21. God's Generals (Roberts Liardon)
In God’s Generals, Roberts Liardon will help you recapture God’s glory with compelling spiritual biographies of some of the most powerful ministries to ever ignite the fires of revival. Liardon faithfully chronicles their lives in this work, along with their teachings, their spiritual discoveries, and many revealing photos.
Four of God’s Generals who you will meet include:
- William J. Seymour, the son of ex-slave, who turned a tiny horse table on Azusa Street, Los Angeles, into an internationally famous center of revival
- Aimee Semple McPherson, the glamourous and flamboyant founder of the Foursquare Church and the nation’s first Christian radio station
- Smith Wigglesworth, the plumber who read no book but the Bible—and raised the dead!
- Kathryn Kuhlman, the beloved evangelist whose miracle-filled meetings drew millions of skeptics to faith
22. The Life of A.W. Tozer (James L. Snyder)
In The Life of A. W. Tozer, James Snyder lets us in on the life and times of a deep thinker who was not afraid to tell it like it is and never compromised his beliefs. A. W. Tozer's spiritual legacy continues today as his writings challenge readers to a deeper relationship and worship of God in reverence and adoration. Here is Tozer's life story, from boyhood and his conversion at the age of seventeen, to his years of pastoring and writing more than 40 books, at least two regarded as Christian classics that continue to appear on best seller lists today. Examining Tozer's life allows the reader to learn from a prophet with much to say against the compromises he observed in contemporary Christian living and the hope he found in his incredible God.
Social Justice
23. When Helping Hurts (Steve Cobertt, Brian Fikkert)
Bestseller When Helping Hurts has changed the way thousands of church and ministry leaders approach poverty. Designed to equip you to begin effectively helping low-income people, When Helping Hurts articulates a biblical framework for poverty alleviation. Learn how to walk with the materially poor in humble relationships instead of just providing them temporary handouts.
24. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Alasdair MacIntyre)
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, the sequel to After Virtue, is a persuasive argument of there not being rationality that is not the rationality of some tradition. MacIntyre examines the problems presented by the existence of rival traditions of inquiry in the cases of four major philosophers: Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Hume.
25. Generous Justice (Timothy Keller)
It is commonly thought in secular society that the Bible is one of the greatest hindrances to doing justice. Isn’t it full of regressive views? Didn’t it condone slavery? Why look to the Bible for guidance on how to have a more just society?
But Timothy Keller sees it another way. In Generous Justice, Keller explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace: a generous, gracious justice. Here is a book for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide as well as those who suspect that Christianity is a regressive influence in the world.
Ministry
26. Deep & Wide (Andy Stanley)
For the first time, Andy explains his strategy for preaching and programming to “dual audiences”: mature believers and cynical unbelievers. He argues that preaching to dual audiences doesn’t require communicators to “dumb down” the content. According to Stanley, it’s all in the approach.
You’ll be introduced to North Point's spiritual formation model: The Five Faith Catalysts. Leaders responsible for ministry programing and production will no doubt love Andy’s discussion of the three essential ingredients for creating irresistible environments. For pastors willing to tackle the challenge of transitioning a local congregation, Andy includes a section entitled: Becoming Deep and Wide.
If your team is more concerned with who you are reaching than who you are keeping, the expanded edition of Deep & Wide will be more than a book you read; it will be a resource you come back to over and over!
27. Communicating For a Change (Andy Stanley)
In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley and Lane Jones offer a unique strategy for communicators seeking to deliver captivating and practical messages. In this highly creative presentation, the authors unpack seven concepts that will empower you to engage and impact your audiences in a way that leaves them wanting more.
28. Irresistible (Andy Stanley)
Once upon a time there was a version of our faith that was practically . . . irresistible. But that was then. Today we preach, teach, write, and communicate as if nothing has changed. As if “The Bible says it,” still settles it.
It’s time to hit pause on much of what we’re doing and consider the faith modeled by our first-century brothers and sisters who had no official Bible, no status, and humanly speaking, little chance of survival. What did they know that we don’t? What made their faith so compelling, so defensible, so irresistible?
