From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions


Ruth A. Tucker - 1983
    From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya is readable, informative, gripping, and above all honest.From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya helps readers understand the life and role of a missionary through real life examples of missionaries throughout history. We see these men and women as fallible and human in their failures as well as their successes. These great leaders of missions are presented as real people, and not super-saints. This second edition covers all 2,000 years of mission history with a special emphasis on the modern era, including chapters focused on the Muslim world, Third World missions, and a comparison of missions in Korea and Japan. It also contains both a general and an “illustration” index where readers can easily locate particular missionaries, stories, or incidents. New design graphics, photographs, and maps help make this a compelling book.From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya is as informative and intriguing as it is inspiring—an invaluable resource for missionaries, mission agencies, students, and all who are concerned about the spreading of the gospel throughout the world.

Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life


Sarah Clarkson - 2018
    Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green Gables, the brave Pevensie children of Narnia, and the wise Austen heroines, she discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage.She's convinced that books can do the same for you.Join Sarah in exploring the reading life as a gift and an adventure, one meant to enrich, broaden, and delight you in each season of your life as a woman. In Book Girl, you'll discover:how reading can strengthen your spiritual life and deepen your faith, why a journey through classic literature might be just what you need (and where to begin), how stories form your sense of identity, how Sarah's parents raised her to be a reader--and what you can do to cultivate a love of reading in the growing readers around you, and 20+ annotated book lists, including some old favorites and many new discoveries.Whether you've long considered yourself a reader or have dreams of becoming one, Book Girl will draw you into the life-giving journey of becoming a woman who reads and lives well.

Multiple Bles8ings: Surviving to Thriving with Twins and Sextuplets


Jon Gosselin - 2008
    Just three years after giving birth to twin daughters, Kate and Jon learned they were pregnant again--with sextuplets. In Multiple Blessings, Kate candidly chronicles the emotional and exhausting challenges she and Jon faced from the time the babies were conceived through the first two years of their lives. This amazing story of faith provides a heartening lesson in what it means to trust the faithful hand of God to provide the strength and courage to make it through life's seemingly impossible situations.

Is There Anybody Out There?: A Journey from Despair to Hope


Mez McConnell - 2001
    But this is not just another harrowing story about an excruciating childhood and the ravages on a life it produces. The difference is that Mez not only escaped from his 'trial by parent' but he discovered a hope that has transformed his life. He in turn has helped others find hope in their lives. Mez's story is told with a frankness and wit that hides much of the pain and despair that was his everyday experience. Nevertheless, although his story at times may sicken you, his first brushes with the faith that restored him will make you laugh out loud! Mez's life involved abuse, violence, drugs, thieving and prison - but you don't have to fall as far as him in order to climb out of the traps in your life. Do you like happy endings? Mez still suffers from his experiences but you'll be amazed at how far you can be restored from such a beginning.

C.S. Lewis: A Life Inspired


Christopher Gordon - 2014
    Lewis, always “Jack” to family and friends, never shied from intellectual debate, and through his written works encouraged others to wrestle with the difficult questions of faith. A master of visual illustration and allegory, Lewis wrote with the intuitive understanding that his readers wrestled with the same questions about the Christian story, about pain, suffering, and notions of Heaven and Hell, as he himself had wrestled. He also understood that others found reason and imagination to be incompatible aspects of an understanding of God and the universe.

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther


Roland H. Bainton - 1950
    This stunning biography looks at the German religious reformer and his influence on Western civilization.

When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over


Addie Zierman - 2013
    She also led two Bible studies and listened exclusively to Christian music. She was on fire for God and unaware that the flame was dwindling—until it burned out. Addie chronicles her journey through church culture and first love, and her entrance—unprepared and angry—into marriage. When she drops out of church and very nearly her marriage as well, it is on a sea of tequila and depression. She isn’t sure if she’ll ever go back. When We Were on Fire is a funny, heartbreaking story of untangling oneself from what is expected to arrive at faith that is not bound by tradition or current church fashion. Addie looks for what lasts when nothing else seems worth keeping. It’s a story for doubters, cynics, and anyone who has felt alone in church.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners


John Bunyan - 1666
    Augustine to Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place. In Grace Abounding, John Bunyan (1628?1688), the author of Pilgrim's Progress, describes his conviction of sin, his struggles against unbelief, his entrance into the meaning and comfort of the Holy Scriptures, and much more.

William Carey


S.Pearce Carey - 2008
    Pearce Carey's compelling pages convey the very atmosphere of that extraordinary period of missionary advance. This life of Carey is structured around a series of remarkable events, always unplanned and unexpected, which opened the way to undreamed of achievements. Carey and his colleagues overcame mountainous obstacles to become the most productive church planters and Bible translators of all time. No other work compares with this moving treatment.

Growing Up Duggar: It's All About Relationships


Jana Duggar - 2013
    They share how their family walks through unexpected and difficult circumstances and how they manage to maintain their faith and love their family.This updated edition has new stories and insights that reflect the experiences of Jill and Jessa—the now-married Duggar daughters—on their exciting journey through courtship, engagement, and marriage. With a backdrop of the key relationships in their lives, the four Duggar girls also open up about their own personal faith and convictions, boys, peer pressure, manners, living in a large family, politics, and much more. You’ll learn how the girls navigate the difficult years between twelve and sixteen, what they look for in a man, life in a big family, and much more—all in a frank and fun book that will inspire teens and adults alike.

Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future


Elizabeth Esther - 2014
    I know hundreds of obscure nineteenth-century hymns by heart and have such razor sharp “modesty vision” that I can spot a miniskirt a mile away.Verily, verily I say unto thee, none of these highly specialized skills ever got me a job, but at least I’m all set for the end of the world. Selah. A story of mind control, the Apocalypse, and modest attire.Elizabeth Esther grew up in love with Jesus but in fear of daily spankings (to “break her will”). Trained in her family-run church to confess sins real and imagined, she knew her parents loved her and God probably hated her. Not until she was grown and married did she find the courage to attempt the unthinkable. To leave.In her memoir, readers will recognize questions every believer faces: When is spiritual zeal a gift, and when is it a trap? What happens when a pastor holds unchecked sway over his followers? And how can we leave behind the harm inflicted in the name of God without losing God in the process?By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Girl at the End of the World is a story of the lingering effects of spiritual abuse and the growing hope that God can still be good when His people fail.Includes reading group discussion guide and interview with the author

Devoted: Great Men and Their Godly Moms


Tim Challies - 2018
     History tells of women whose love for the Bible shaped its earliest and most prominent teachers. It tells of women who were great theologians in their own right, yet whose only students were their own children. It tells, time and time again, of Christian men who owe so much to their godly mothers. Raising children to honor and glorify the Lord is the goal of every Christian mother, but how can you do that? Who can teach you? One of the best ways to learn is to read examples of women who have succeeded at the very task you are attempting. Come take a brief look at some of them. We will look to the church’s earliest days to find a man who owed his salvation to the careful biblical instruction he received on the lap of his mother. We will zoom forward a few centuries to a woman whose constant prayers were at last rewarded when her son came to faith and went on to become one of history’s most influential theologians. We will advance to recent centuries to see how the prayers, teaching, and examples of godly mothers have shaped evangelists, preachers, and stalwart defenders of the faith. We will learn together of Christian men and their godly moms, mothers who were used to shape the men who changed the world.

Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do


Christine Caine - 2012
    Using her own dramatic life story, Caine shows how God rescued her from a life where she was unnamed, unwanted, and unqualified. She tells how she overcame abuse, abandonment, fears, and other challenges to go on a mission of adventure, fueled by faith and filled with love and courage. Her personal stories inspire readers to hear their name called, just as Christine heard her own—“You are beloved. You are the hope. You are chosen”—to go into a dark and troubled world, knowing each of us possess all it takes to bring hope, create change, and live completely for Christ. Part inspirational tale, part manifesto to stir readers to lives of adventure, Undaunted shows the way with spiritual wisdom and insight.

Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux


Thérèse de Lisieux - 1898
    John Clarke's acclaimed translation, first published in 1975, is now accepted as the standard throughout the English-speaking world.

It's Not What You Think: Why Christianity is About So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die


Jefferson Bethke - 2015
    For missing it. For succumbing to the danger and idolatry of forcing God into preconceived ideals. What if there were a better way? What if Jesus came not to help people escape the world but rather to restore it? Best-selling author and spoken word artist Jefferson Bethke says that Christians have the greatest story ever told but we aren t telling it. So in this new book, Bethke tells that story anew, presenting God s truths from the Old and the New Testaments as the challenging and compelling story that it is a grand narrative with God at the center. And in doing so, Bethke reminds readers of the life-changing message of Jesus that turned the world upside-down, a world that God is putting back together."