If I were to summarize the best books I’ve read in the last half-decade, where would I start?
I’ve read so many good books! Books like I Dared to Call Him Father, Spirit of the Rainforest, Out of a Far Country, Where the Light Fell, and Deep Undercover which tell the stories of those who’ve lived harrowing lives yet came to know Jesus and find complete redemption in him.
Those such as The Deeply Formed Life, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk which help me structure my life to be a more wholly integrated being who rules his spirit instead of letting his spirt rule him.
Deep Work and Finish transformed the way I work and set goals.
Where Do We Go From Here, The Color of Compromise, Bad Faith, and Jesus and John Wayne gave me a better understanding of conflicts between race and gender in the church in America today.
The Rise of Christianity, The Lost History of Christianity, The Next Christendom, and For the Glory of God all helped me grasp a broader perspective of the Christian movement throughout history.
God Has a Name, The God Who Is There, The Lost World of the Torah, The Drama of Scripture, and Reading Romans Backwards helped me better understand God and His Word.
AH!!
How can I possibly isolate five and call them the “Top Books I’ve Read”?!
But here it goes.
There are many excellent books I haven’t even listed. But here are five that have left profound marks on me. They’ve changed me. Outside of scripture itself, these five books have rearranged the way I think about life and look at the world.
For the sake of climax, I’m going to start with number five and end with number one.
5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
While everyone wants to work on “healthy teams” or be a part of “healthy communities,” it can be difficult to pinpoint what actually creates health. Perhaps that’s why Patrick Lencioni works backwards by beginning with what creates unhealthy team dynamics.
As I read, I could see the dysfunctional parts of any team I’ve worked with explained before my eyes. His building blocks of trust will be forever remembered as I work with others. Those being, a willingness to enter conflict, commitment, accountability, and attention to results. Thanks, Rich, for giving the book!
4. People to Be Loved
I read this in 2017, and the conversation about sexuality and gender has since moved on to transgender and gender dysphoria. But the title says it all. No matter what we’re discussing, when it comes to experiences people have, we are talking about people to be loved, not issues to be solved.
Preston Sprinkle lays out the biblical case for the historically Christian view of marriage between one man and one woman for life. At the same time, he gives profound pastoral counsel for how to walk with those who might not ever be able to experience such a marriage. I’d consider it a must-read for any Christian and leader today.
3. The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of a New Covenant
Some of you will shrink when you order this and discover it’s a theology book (if you hadn’t gathered as much from the title). But before you write it off and call me a geek, this book single-handedly recaptured my attention with a compelling vision for church—the bride and body of Jesus.
In design, it’s an exegetical work laying out a biblical understanding of the ultimately purpose of atonement. And while it most certainly helped me understand the atonement at a deeper level then ever before, it reignited in me a love for the community of people Jesus is uniting in Himself. Thank you, Michael Gorman, for this work!
2. Culture Making
This was required reading in my Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Civilization class, stretching over five semesters. Andy Crouch provides a robust analysis of how Christians in America have tried to influence culture in times past. We’ve typically taken on one of four postures: condemning culture, critiquing culture, copying culture, or consuming culture. These postures have never worked to influence culture at large. In fact, we’ve merely isolated ourselves even farther apart from it.
And lest you think that isolating ourselves from culture is what Jesus means by saying we should not be “of the world,” Crouch goes on to lay out a more biblical way to function in culture. He appeals to what we see in Genesis, culminated in Jesus, and completed in Revelation. He suggests that while the Four C’s will all be appropriate gestures at times, our posture as Christians should be that of creating and cultivating. After all, that’s what mankind was commissioned to do in the very beginning.
No other book has shaped my view of work, how I understand my function in society as a Christian, and the whole purpose of being an active participant in the lives of every day people around me more than this book.
1. Until Unity
I recently finished this book, so there may be some recency bias at play. Even so, I believe this is a must-read book my generation of Christians. We live in such a divided time. It’s not like the world has never been divided before, but the Church is extremely divided today.
Francis Chan’s main thrust is that the church of Jesus is called to be one, as He is one with the Father. Yet we’ve made a history of dividing ourselves. Now, we’re more divided than ever—we criticize each other more often than we share the Gospel.
About two thirds of the way through the book, he shifts from a broad vision of unity, to addressing practical challenges to fleshing out unity in community. It’s clear he cares about faithfulness to the Gospel. He doesn’t avoid New Testament passages that speak to calling out false teachers and removing from among ourselves those who sow division or continue in unrepentant sin. Even here, however, he points out how we so often fight over interpretations of scripture and not actual sin or Gospel issues.
I found the chapter on how to respond to critics and how to fight for diversity in the work of unity to be most helpful for me personally. Perhaps my favorite quote of the book comes when he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The quote goes, “He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter.” That one convicted!
I’ll be returning to this book and mulling on it’s insight for years to come.
Your Turn
There, I did it! I just listed and reviewed the top five books I’ve read in the last five years. Now it’s your turn! What are the top five books you’ve read recently? Share about them in the comments below and I’ll start filling my list for the next five years.
Like this? Gain access to even more in-depth articles reconciling human experiences with God and His Word when you become a member of Unfeigned Christianity on Patreon.
