Last week I walked into one of the few remaining big box bookstores in North America and after eyeing the stacks of beautiful covers and interesting categories, I decided to peruse the Christian Living shelves.
I wish I could say I was shocked, but sadly, what I found was in keeping with the way I’ve watched Christian retailing and marketing transform over the past three decades (my first real job was as a cashier in a Christian bookstore when I was 16, and also sadly, that was three decades ago).
Christian retailing and marketing looks very much like all the other retail and marketing, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We want what we have to share to catch the eye of regular people and to draw them in, and we want what we’re producing to be of high quality.
But there’s a catch to all of that chasing marketability: What tends to sell in stacks at Costco isn’t deeply Biblical, unless it’s a stack of Bibles.
It’s not a secret that I’ve been struggling for some time with the idea that Christians in ministry must now be marketable; I wrote a piece last year called I Daresay Elisabeth Elliot Would Not Get a Book Deal in 2017 that speaks to the reality of platforms and au courant marketing techniques.
Just a few days after my impromptu trip to the bookstore, my 17-year-old daughter and I had a discussion about Christian books, and she told me that she is increasingly turned off by what she described as the “Rah! Rah! You are strong! You can do this! Dream big!” authors with big platforms who don’t ever seem to get to the core of anything other than what turns out to be really pretty Instagramable cheerleading. I sympathized, and then I turned to women (and one particular guy for a particular reason) in my life who pursue Jesus passionately and asked them,
“Which books, other than the Bible, changed your life?”
The responses were spectacular, and I especially appreciated how each one seems to be a reflection of how each of these believers lives their own lives.
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Good, Solid Christian Books That Just Might Change Your Life
Autobiographies and Biographies
A Chance to Die: The Life & Legacy of Amy Carmichael, Elisabeth Elliot
A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken
Bad Girls of the Bible, Liz Curtis Higgs
Chasing God, Roger Huang
China Cry, Nora Lam
Evidence Not Seen, Darlene Deibler Rose
Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God, Noel Piper
The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom
Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor
I Dared to Call Him Father, Bilquis Sheikh, Richard H. Schneider
Really Bad Girls of the Bible, Liz Curtis Higgs
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosario Butterfield
Seven Women, Eric Metaxas
Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliot
Tramp for the Lord, Corrie ten Boom
Christian Living and Spirituality
All of Grace, Charles Spurgeon
Because He Loves Me, Elyse Fitzpatrick
The Bruised Reed, Richard Sibbes
The Calvary Road, Roy Hession
The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel
Desiring God, John Piper
Discipline: The Glad Surrender, Elisabeth Elliot
Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper
Drumbeat of Love, Lloyd John Ogilvie
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Pete Scazzero
God Has a Name, John Mark Comer
God is the Gospel, John Piper
Godspeed, Britt Merrick
The Great Commandment Principle, David Ferguson
Habits of Grace, David Mathis
In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character, Jen Wilkin
Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, Paul Tripp
The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne
The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey
Keep a Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot
Knowing God, J.I. Packer
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
New Morning Mercies, Paul Tripp
None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That's a Good Thing), Jen Wilkin
Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl, ND Wilson
One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp
Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot
Permission Evangelism, Michael L. Simpson
A Praying Life, Paul E. Miller
The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller
The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning
Sacred Pathways, Gary L. Thomas
A Scandalous Freedom, Steve Brown
Secure in the Everlasting Arms, Elisabeth Elliot
Streams in the Desert, L.B. Cowman
These Strange Ashes, Elisabeth Elliot
Three Free Sins, Steve Brown
Unoffendable, Brant Hansen
What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey
When People Are Big and God is Small, Edward T. Welch
Particularly On the Subject of Women
Eve in Exhile, Rebekah Merkle
Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision For Women, Carolyn Custis James
Learning Contentment, Nancy Wilson
Lies Women Believe, Nancy Leigh Demoss Wolgemuth
Lost Women of the Bible: The Women We Thought We Knew, Carolyn Custis James
Popes & Feminists, Elise Crapuchettes
Phew! That should keep us reading for awhile. Is there a book that has changed your life but isn’t on this list? Let us know in the comments below!
