Okay, all you book lovers.
My pastor asked me if I would clean out, weed, and otherwise improve our church library. I have a modest budget to work with and I need to spend it in the next few weeks or I’ll lose it at the end of the fiscal year. So I need to get on Amazon posthaste and spend money on books.
What a job. But someone has to do it.
So what would you buy for a church library? I’m not looking for anything super popular so forget The Shack and Wild at Heart and other such stuff.
I’m looking for things that will fit in a moderately conservative Reformed church so Swinging from the Chandeliers with the Holy Ghost is probably out as is 101 Reasons for Believer’s Baptism.
Any ideas?
Now I Have a Name For It: Dwelling
Oops, forgot books by Nancy Lee DeMoss
Sorry if you didn’t get the last e-mail. If you will send me your address or the church’s address, I will mail you a free copy(brand new) of Boundaries.
Annie
All the books by Piper are sound. He is the greatest theologian in the US today.
Also works by CS Lewis and for novels Karen Kingsbury’s Family series is fabulous.
Don’t forget to get something for the little ones.
Annie
Hannah Whitall Smith’s _The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life_.
Fiction novel _Christy_ by Catherine Marshall.
_Fox’s Book of Martyrs_ (I find this interesting reading, historical resource).
Corrie Ten Boom _The Hiding Place_.
Billy Graham’s devotionals _Unto these Hills_.
Unger’s Bible Handbook & Dictionary.
Just to name some I’ve enjoyed. I also enjoy hymnal handbooks that give history and such about music.
I wrote the name wrong of the author of “Surprised by Hope” – it is N.T. Wright.
An odd sort of thing that I found out – don’t buy the books everyone is reading – they HAVE those. I used to look for slightly less popular books, and nothing new. It took me YEARS to realize that rarely are the third and forth books as good as the first and second in a series. And beyond the forth? Spare me.
The Dave and Neva Jackson series for children is great, too. At least the early ones that I am familiar with. Great fiction based on fact missionary stories.
Some quick grabs off my shelf (of the more intensely practical nature) :
*Teaching your child how to pray (Rick Osborne)
*”Don’t make me count to Three” (Ginger Plowman)
*Professionalizing Motherhood (Jill Savage)
*Say Goodbye to Whining complaining and bad attitudes… in you and your kids (Turansky and Miller) {Award for ‘longest title’}
*The Angel and the Ants (Peter Freeft) {One of the best books I’ve read about holiness in daily living}
*Bedtime Blessings (John Trent)
*FOTF Parents’ guide to the Spiritual Growth of Children (Trent, Osborne, Bruner)
*The Language of Love (Smally/Trent) {a book about using stories to more effectively communicate your emotional message. One of the better books I’ve seen about “communication”}
Sorry, mis-typed. Peter Kreeft wrote The Angels and the Ants.
If you want to see some excerpts put his name or title in the search bar on my blog. I quoted it quite a bit at one time.
The Cross of Christ by John R.W. Scott
Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by
Michael Overy, Andrew Sach, Steve Jeffery
In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement by J.I. Packer
Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance
by Os Guinness
Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World edited by C.J. Mahaney
Life as a Vapor: Thirty-One Meditations for Your Faith by John Piper
Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley
Feminine Appeal by by Carolyn Mahaney
“Family Driven Faith” by Voddie Baucham
“More Than You and Me” by Kevin and Karen Miller (out of print, but cheap on half.com) Best Christian marriage book my husband and I have ever read…it’s outward focused, unlike every other marriage book that’s inward focused. It’s about growing your marriage / relationship by finding the ministry vision God has designed for you as a couple and serving others.
I’d second any of Susan Hunt’s childrens’ books. If you want any fiction, Beverly Lewis or Cindy Woodsmall are good. Also, as someone mentioned, anything by Kevin Lehman on marriage and family. I saw Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas mentioned, but not his Sacred Parenting. Also, if you’re looking for financial help books, Dave Ramsey’s are good.
Most of my favorites were already listed…
I would add, some of Catherine Marshall’s non-fiction works, too. I have given her “To Live Again” to a Christian friend whose husband died, she read it through twice in the first few weeks she got it and really appreciated it. (I sent it about a month before Christmas, my husband asked me, “why not just give it as a Christmas present? I replied confidently, “she needs it now,” and she did. (I don’t often have strong feelings about things like this, but sometimes I do, and I’ve learned (usually!) to not ignore them.)
I also especially like Catherine Marshall’s book “The Helper.”
The other books I most often give away are:
Mere Christianity
The Hiding Place
How Now Shall We Live
Colson’s The Good Life (more for an older non-Christian who is seeking, but good to have in a library so people can find out about it and buy copies to give away.)
My favorite fiction author is George MacDonald. I also like Lawana Blackwell.
books that have meat to them. Too many church libraries are fiction or filled with ‘pap”. So books that have substance to them…piper, macarthur, stott, a good commentary series ie the “let’s study” series. books by mahaney, bridges and so forth.
I used to be church librarian…i know it can be tough to please folk. But err on the side of providing more meat and less fluff. People can buy or donate their own fluff the church’s job is to fuel a deeper love for God.
For children, ‘The Jesus Storybook Bible’ by Sally Lloyd-Jones is, I think, the best thing ever written
Hannah’s Hope by Jennifer Saake
has anyone mentioned My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers?
Hi Sallie!
I forgot my favorites for children:
The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos
Training Hearts Teaching Minds: Family Devotions Based on the Shorter Catechism by Starr Meade
and
Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen Taylor.
🙂
Anything by Miroslav Volf, but esp. “Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation” and “Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace”.