I have read some phenomonal books over the past year, so today I wanted to share my favorite christian books of 2020 with you! Some of these books would probably go into my list of best christian non-fiction books because I loved them so much! Each of these books were very influential for me this year in a different way or on a different topic. I hope you will find some good reads to add to your book list for the upcoming year!
Best Christian Non-Fiction Books of 2020
Alright, here are my favorites from the year! Enjoy!!
Risen Motherhood by Emily Jensen & Laura Wifler
This was the first book I read this year and I was SO eager to read it because the Risen Motherhood Podcast is one of my favorites to listen to. And the book was just as amazing as the podcast is each week! This book is filled with the truths of the gospel and how they apply to everyday life as a mom.
They start off by covering the basics of the gospel and God’s purpose for motherhood. Then they dive into so many areas of motherhood and apply the gospel to that specific area. A few examples of the chapters are: The Gospel and Our Heart Attitudes, The Gospel and Our Mundane Moments, The Gospel and Our Traditions, The Gospel and Self-Care, and the Gospel and Our Schooling Choices. Each chapter breaks down the gospel in relation to the topic similarly to how I do here in my “Gospel in Everyday” posts: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. The book finishes with a few chapters about learning how to apply the gospel to your daily life as a mom.
While this book is a book for moms, it is truly so helpful for anyone in my opinion. The truths of the gospel apply to anyone and these areas of life can apply to many people in different seasons of life. Learning to apply the gospel to our everyday lives is so important as we grow to have Christ at the center of our lives. This book is a great resource to help us all grow in doing just that! It has become a must-read to give to all my new mom friends as they embark on the season of motherhood.
Here’s an encouraging snippet to get you excited to head over and get your hands on it!:
“If you trust in Christ, the power that raised him from the dead is the same power in your daily life. The Holy Spirit provides what you need to be patient, kind, loving, long-suffering, faithful, and gentle toward your husband, children, and others around you. He allows you to see that motherhood isn’t just made up of long days and tedious work- motherhood is made up of a million tiny moments for worship. All of life is about growing in Christlikeness, sharing God’s love, and seeing Christ’s kingdom established here on Earth.”
Risen Motherhood, p. 27
The Mission of God’s People by Christopher J. H. Wright
This one was probably the most influential book of the year! I almost don’t know where to start with how much I learned from this book. The Mission of God’s People is all about how the grand narrative of scripture propels the church in the purpose that God has for us. He does an incredible job at diving deep into God’s Word to give us a biblical theology that affects all of life as God’s people.
This book seeks to answer the question: “What does the Bible as a whole in both testaments have to tell us about why the people of God exist and what it is they are supposed to be and do in the world? What is the mission of God’s people?” (p.17).
Wright starts the book by looking deeply at the gospel for all of life and who exactly the people of God are. He spends a lot of time focusing on “knowing the story we are apart of” as God’s people as we look at the big picture story of scripture. This is the focus as he goes into tons of specifics in each chapter about what it looks like to be the people of God. Some examples are: People Who Care for Creation, People Who Are a Blessing to the Nations, People Who Are Redeemed for Redemptive Living, People Who Attract Others to God, People Who Know the Living God and Saviour, People Who Send and Are Sent, People Who Live and Work in the Public Square, and People Who Praise and Pray.
This book is quite a big read, but worth every page. Many books on missions focus on the task of sending missionaries to a lost world (which he also does here), but what I loved about this book was that he shows us how the mission of God’s people is a part of all of life and is for each and every one of God’s people. The mission involves being representatives of Christ who care for His creation, attract others to God, seek justice and mercy, and participate with God as He redeems ALL of His creation.
I loved this quote from one chapter:
“And by God’s incredible grace we have a gospel big enough to redeem all that sin and evil have touched. And every dimension of that good news is good news utterly and only because of the blood of Christ on the cross…So it is my passionate conviction that holistic mission must have a holistic theology of the cross. That includes the conviction that the cross must be as central to our social engagement as it is to our evangelism. There is no other power, no other resource, no other name, through which we can offer the whole gospel to the whole person to the whole world, than Jesus Christ crucified and risen.”
The Mission of God’s People, p. 111
The Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren
Another great book!! This book is all about being aware of God’s presence and work in the everyday moments of life that we often overlook. Tish does an incredible job of using everyday, mundane parts of our day like waking up, making our beds, or brushing our teeth to show how these small habits form who we are. Each of these everyday practices is related to a spiritual discipline or liturgy in our worship to show how they make up a life filled with worship to our great God.
As I read, I was challenged to examine the liturgies of my ordinary days because it is in these moments of my life that reveal what my heart truly loves most. As I thought about parts of my day such as making the bed in relation to the steady habits of meeting with God each day, I was encouraged to pursue God deeper. As I thought about the time I spend sitting in traffic each day, I was pushed to be reminded that time is not mine, it is God’s. These connections and applications to my everyday were brought up often in the following days as I took part in these daily practices.
I would highly recommend this book! Here is a quote that I thought summed up the book well:
“If I am to spend my whole life being transformed by the good news of Jesus, I must learn how grand, sweeping truths- doctrine, theology, ecclesiology, Christology- rub against the texture of an average day. How I spend this ordinary day in Christ is how I will spend my Christian life.”
Liturgy of the Ordinary, p. 24
Something Needs to Change by David Platt
This book will move you to tears, compassion, and ultimately to action. In this book, David Platt takes you along on his journey trekking through the Himalayas. You get a front row seat to the food he ate, the places he walked, the people he met, the stories he heard, and the time of wrestling through so many hard things with God. As he treks, he is brought face to face with some of the hardest injustices in the world and is overwhelmed by some of life’s hardest questions because of what he sees and hears. In the midst of all this suffering, pain, and hardship, can Jesus truly be the hope of the world?
I was so challenged by how raw and vulnerable this book was. Each chapter walks you through one day of his trek. You get the stories of what he sees and the stories of the many people he meets alongside his prayers of how he’s feeling along the way. Each day you read through the section of Luke that he was reading during his trek and you come face to face with what Jesus is talking about in many of these chapters. You see him apply the Word to these difficult days and wrestle in prayer to God over all he sees and experiences.
I cried often as I read, weeping over the stories shared. And it indeed moved me to say along with him and the many others’ stories from around the world that I know, “something does need to change!!”
I loved the way he finished the book with various challenges to think through. He started in this way:
“So what needs to change? I certainly don’t presume to know the answer to that question for you. My primary aim in sharing this trek has been to bring you to the point- along with me- of asking the question. To the point where you feel, hopefully in a fresh way in your heart, the urgent needs around us in the world, and to where you believe, even with all the questions you or I might have, that Jesus is indeed the ultimate hope amid such needs. Further, I hope you realize that God has designed your life to count for the spread of his hope amid the most hopeless situations in the world.”
Something Needs to Change, p. 191
Everyday Faithfulness by Glenna Marshall
This book was a breath of fresh air to me! This was one of the last books that I read this year and boy did I need it! In Everyday Faithfulness, Glenna Marshall talks about what it looks like to live a life that pursues small steps of faithfulness to God each and every day. I read this book during a retreat away alongside studying the book of Philippians and it was so encouraging to see the connections between the two throughout my time.
So much of what she (and Paul in Philippians!) talks about is really fleshing out what it means to faithfully follow Christ each and every day of our lives. It’s a life filled with prayer, steeped deep in the Word, filled with unity with others as you labor side by side. It’s a slow and steady growth, progress, and joy in the faith, and a willingness to humbly lay down your life for the gospel every moment of everyday. It also involves this longing for what’s to come- a faithfulness today with a hope for eternity with Christ that is unending.
I was so encouraged by the simplicity of seeking to be faithful to follow God and trust Him one day at a time, and her focus on ordinary perseverance in the life of a believer as we trust God and lean on His strength each day. At the end of each chapter, she shared a story of someone in her life that was a beautiful example of someone who lived out this everyday faithfulness. These stories were so encouraging and inspiring to simply walk with God each day even when it seems ordinary or mundane.
This quote sums up the book so well:
“Faithfulness is an everyday calling. It’s regular, it’s ordinary, it’s taking a really long view of the Christian life. It’s reshaping our desires for immediate fruit and committing to following Jesus for the long haul. It’s getting up every single day and believing that God is your treasure, that the gospel of Jesus is worth your every breath, and that he is enough. Faithfulness is doing this again tomorrow and the next day and ten years from now. Faithfulness is ordinary. It’s unremarkable. It plods. It is also precious in the sight of the God who works out lifelong sanctifying perseverance in your life for your good and his glory.”
Everyday Faithfulness, p. 15
Be The Bridge by Latasha Morrison
I cannot recommend this book enough! Along with so many of you, this year has brought many hours of learning, listening, mourning, and praying with the Black community. This book was incredibly helpful as she shares her stories with vulnerability, humility, love, and a heart to bring racial reconciliation to all people. There are so many great books out there on this topic, but what is so wonderful about this one is her heart to pursue God’s heart for racial reconciliation. This book does an amazing job of pairing stories and experiences with the heart and Word of God to show God’s great care for His people who He created in His image. She is continually pointing us to depend on God as we actively seek racial reconciliation, a “racial unity that is possible through Christ.” p.9
I love how Latasha breaks down the book: The Bridge to Lament, The Bridge to Confession and Forgiveness, and the Bridge to Restorative Reconciliation. She brings us through each stage that we must go through as we seek reconciliation and shows us what this looks like in Scripture with so many examples to draw from. Each chapter finishes with a prayer written by different people, and each section of the book finishes with a liturgy to say collectively as we seek together as God’s people to pursue reconciliation and restoration. These prayers and liturgies spoke directly to the cry of my heart after each chapter and were so helpful to pray back to God.
I hope you’ll pick this book up to get an amazing vision of what it looks like as God’s people to take the lead in pursuing racial reconciliation, justice, unity, and love that reflects our good God. The gospel propels us forward in this and Latasha does a wonderful job at fixing our gaze on the power of God to bring restoration. I’m so eager to continue growing, learning, and applying what I’ve learned in these pages.
Here is her first prayer at the end of the first chapter. May we all pray this together in unity as God’s people as we participate with God in reconciling all things to Himself for His glory.
“A Prayer of Humility: Lord, we ask that the words of this book fall on the soil of our hearts. Come into our brokenness and our lives with your love that heals all. Consume our pride and replace it with humility and vulnerability. Allow us to make space for your correction and redemption. Allow us to bow down with humble hearts, hearts of repentance. May we hear your voice within the words of these pages. Give us collective eyes to see our role in repairing what has been broken. Allow these words to be a conduit for personal transformation that would lead to collective reproduction. -Latasha Morrison
Be the Bridge, p. 11
I hope you will check out all of these books and add them to your list for the next year! They would be great ideas to read personally, together with someone you’re discipling, or with your small group. Want more book and resource recommendations? Check out my resource pages:
Discipleship Resources
Family Discipleship Resources
Happy reading!
Thinking about what the next year holds and want some guidance in setting some biblical goals for the new year? Sign up below to get my Biblical Goal Setting Worksheet to help you pray and process through the upcoming year!