24 Books Every Church Leader Should Own

I’m sort of a geek when it comes to books.  Since moving to PNG, I’ve slowed down on buying books, but a quick estimate confirms that I have around 500 ministry/theology/Bible study related books.  By contrast, I have about 25 personal finance books.

The ultimate irony of this blog is that I spend a lot more time studying topics other than finances.  Most of the time I read theological books – not financial ones.

A few weeks ago we talked about ways to encourage your minister or pastor.  One of the suggestions was to buy your minister a book.

Today I want to follow up a little bit by making some suggestions on books that your minister might enjoy reading.  And, I’ll give you a lazy warning up front.  If I were a good blogger, I would go through and hyperlink all of these books to Amazon so you could click on that link and buy the book so I could get a referral commission.

Instead, I’m going to put one link and mention that if you want to buy a book from Amazon, please click here.  (Thanks!).

The 12 Books I Reference Most Frequently

This is the list of books I pull off my shelf time and time again.  They are the books with tea stains, fingerprint stains, and ketchup.  If you stole them, I’d probably cry.

To tell you the truth, number one one my list would be my Libronix Digial Library, but since that is hundreds of books in one program, it doesn’t count.

1. Dictionary of Paul and His Letters
2. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels
3. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch
4. Dictionary of Old Testament: Historical Books
5. Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership
6. I Loved a Girl
7. Conformed to His Image
8. Devotional Classics
9. The Making of a Leader
10. Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ
11. Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach
12. Theology for the Community of God

12 Books that Have Influenced My Thinking

The following are not necessarily books I suggest (not that I don’t), but books that have influenced my thinking.  Some have influenced my thinking by challenging some assumptions I have (like Jesus and Judaism), but I still don’t completely agree with the conclusion.  Anyways, I think a part of who I am today comes from bits and pieces I’ve picked up from the following 12 books. La pantera rosa, simplificada y fácil para flauta dulce. PINK PANTHER RECORDER _ Tutorial .

1. Buttrik, Homiletic
2. Weserhoff, Will Our Children Have Faith?
3. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism
4. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
5. Sider, Just Generosity
6. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew
7. Allen, Hughes, Weed, The Worldly Church
8. Willimon, Pastor
9. Why do Christians Shoot their Wounded?
10. Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
11. Slaikeu and Hanson,  Controlling the Cost of Conflict
12. Rendle, Leading Change in the Congregation

I’m sure there are more, but this is what I came up with in the allocated time.

In case you were looking for personal finance suggestions, here are my 10 top Christian personal finances books.

Photo by Xelcise.

Any favorites you want to mention?

Other Great Articles:

1. Who Should the Church Help?
2. Is the Church Immune to Wealth, Power, and Abundance?
3. How Did the New Testament Church Spend Their Money?