A friend wrote today to ask what books about missions I would recommend to his church for a missions event. I have arranged some of my favorites, old and new, in a few categories below and linked them to Amazon. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it is a great place to start! Please feel free include your favorites in the comments below as I am always looking for something to read!

Introductions to Missions

• Let the Nations be Glad by Piper
• Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global by Johnson (forward by David Platt)
• Cross: Unrivaled Christ, Unstoppable Gospel, Unreached People, and Unending Joy by Piper, Mbewe, Platt, DeYoung, et al.
• Something Must Change: A Call to Make Your Life Count in a World of Urgent Need by Platt

Evangelism

• Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus by Stiles (and I still love his older text called Speaking of Jesus.
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Dever
• God is the Gospel by Piper
• What is the Gospel? by Gilbert and Carson

World Religions, Culture, and Worldview

• One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference by Peter Jones
• The Universe Next Door by James Sire
• Engaging with Muslims by John Klaassen
• One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love by Perkins

Church History

• In the Year of Our Lord: Reflections on 20 Centuries of Church History by Ferguson
• From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Tucker
• Pages from Church History by Nichols
• The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History by Curtis, Lang, and Petersen

Missionary Biographies

• Pig in a Taxi and Other African Adventures by Crocker.
• We Died before We Came Here by Foreman
• William Borden of Yale by Taylor
• A Passion for the Impossible by Rockness
• In the Presence of My Enemies by Burnham
• For the Glory: the Untold and Inspiring story of Eric Liddell by Duncan Hamilton (review here)
• More about biographies here

Many things Short-Term Missions can be found here.

Children’s Resources

• The Church History ABC’s by Nichols and Bustard (also check out Reformation ABC’s)
• Christian Heroes Series of 45+ biographies. Compelling stories for young readers (7-14ish)
• All of the books by Patricia St. John: Treasure of the Snow, Tanglewood Secret, Star of Light. . .
• Window on the World: An Operation Resource.
• More on Kids and missions here, here, and here.