In what’s become an annual tradition, this week I’m writing about some of the top books I read this year. This is my list of nonfiction books. Here’s a link to my fiction list.
Great Books
As always, these books meet three criteria:
- They taught me (nonfiction) or made me feel something (fiction) even if I didn’t agree with them.
- They were very well written.
- They stuck with me after I read them.
To see everything I’ve read, and all the books I’ve written, feel free to follow me on Goodreads.
Book of the Year
The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism (Brad Edwards, 2025)
A huge shift has happened over the last decade or so in how people perceive institutions, especially the institutional church. The rise of radical individualism has replaced once-trusted institutions, and in this book Brad Edwards shows us why a distrust in institutions is problematic, and why institutions—especially the church—still matter.
I talked to Brad about The Reason for Church in a wide-ranging interview in Ep 118 of The Church Lobby podcast.
(NOTE: Christianity Today named The Reason for Church their Book of the Year for 2025.)
Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling (Nijay K. Gupta, 2024)
How did the early Christians go from an obscure Jewish sect to overturning the entire Roman system of government, religion, and culture in a shockingly short period of time? Gupta takes a fresh look at the Roman/Greek world of the first century, contrasting the pagan worldview with the new, strange, and dangerous worldview of the Kingdom of God, as introduced by Jesus and promoted by his followers.
Some surpising insights include 1) “Belief” was never a factor in pagan religions, but it was central to Jesus’ teaching, and 2) Having no idols or temples made Jesus’ followers an existential threat to the existing “power pyramid,” 3) Jesus’ teaching of the Kingdom of God challenged and quickly upended the Pax Romana (Roman peace) and Pax Deorum (keeping peace with the gods).
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, 2012)
No one reads the Bible without filtering its meaning through the lens of their own culture, experience, and theology. Richards and O’Brien give us tools to start us down the road of recognizing the hidden cultural biases that we have in the western world, not because our cultural filters are any less problematic than the ones held by others, but simply because that’s the audience they’re writing for.
Many of their examples were eye-opening to me, and all of their principles were helpful. I highly recommend this book for anyone who reads and studies the Bible, and especially for those who preach and teach it to others. We owe it to them to get this as right as we can.
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church (Sarah McCammon, 2024)
If you’ve ever wondered what’s going on with so many people using terms like de-churching and exvangelical, this book is a good place to get some idea of what’s happening, straight from the mind, pen, and heart of someone who refers to herself as an exvangelical.
If you, like me, were raised as an evangelical and are still very comfortable in that world, it may be hard to read this without wanting to push back and maybe even throw the book across the room. But I encourage you to read with an open heart—not that you’ll agree with everything (I didn’t), but to gain a clearer understanding of why people are actually leaving.
Each chapter outlines a specific issue that has caused many former evangelicals to rethink their beliefs. Not surprisingly, these include race, sexuality, gender roles, and politics, but they also include important takes on unexpected topics like original sin, the second coming, and corporal punishment.
This book didn’t change my mind, but it did equip me to have more clarity and compassion when I engage in conversations with those who have left or are questioning the faith I grew up with and still love—and that many of them still miss.
When Hurting People Come to Church: How People of Faith Can Help Solve the Mental Health Crisis (Shaunti Feldhahn & James N. Sells, 2025)
This is such a practical book. I got so much out of it that I reached out to Drs. Feldhahn and Sells to interview them for an episode of The Church Lobby. It was recorded last week and will come out in March, 2026.
The book focuses on the very practical CARE strategy (Coordinated Attention, Restoration, and Encouragement), and how churches of any size can be better equipped to help, starting with renewing friendships, training a CARE coordinator, the three key people every church needs to help hurting people, and more.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (David Grann, 2023)
This account of a real-life marine adventure/tragedy is like Ernest Shackleton meets Mutiny on the Bounty.
It includes several unlikely turns of events that no one would have the audacity to put in a work of fiction. The way Grann writes about eighteenth century life puts you in the middle of the improbable action. A great read for fans of real-life tales of seafaring, history, human resilience, and survival against all odds.
Kent State: An American Tragedy (Brian VanDeMark, 2024)
Perspective is essential. Without it, we can easily get lulled into thinking that whatever is happening right here, right now is either the best that ever was, or the worst. Take the current state of American political polarization. Certainly it’s as bad as it’s been in many decades. But reading a book like this can help us understand that it has been, and therefore can be, worse. Much worse.
On May 4, 1970 on the campus of Kent State University there was a horrible confluence of poor judgment, fear, rage, political entrenchment, lack of training, and bad leadership that led to the deaths of four students at the hands of young, under-trained national guardsmen. Nine others students were wounded, and thousands of innocent bystanders and family members were forever traumatized. As horrifc as it was, this tragedy feels even worse when you read about how avoidable it all was.
Lessons learned? Too few. Likelihood that another Kent State could happen in the not-too-distant future? Much higher than it should be. Read this book and weep for their loss. And for ours, if we fail to heed its lessons.
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Neal Gabler, 2006)
“It had always been about control,” writes Gabler. “That is what Walt Disney provided for America. Not escape, as so many analysts would surmise, but control.”
It isn’t until more than two-thirds of the way through this hefty book that author Neal Gabler makes this claim, but when he does, it’s no surprise.
First, Walt Disney controlled light, sound, color, and movement through mastering and creating the early technology of animation. Then he captured and controlled the pace and direction of the entertainment industry and a huge swath of the American culture through so many innovations that I constantly found myself muttering “that’s right, he did that too!” over and over again.
This is an exhaustive biography of a brilliant, complicated man and his even more complicated legacy.
Columbine (Dave Cullen, 2009)
Cassie Bernal didn’t have the chance to say “yes”, the trench coat mafia had nothing to do with the attack, Christians were not targeted, the perpetrators were not goths and had not been bullied. Those, and many other myths from the worst school shooting in American history (at the time) are explored in precise detail in this gripping book.
Originally published 10 years after the tragic day when two students walked into their high school and started shooting students and teachers. The author has released a 25th anniversary edition with updated research, including many facts that were not released until long after the events, leading to so many of our lasting, but faulty impressions.
This is an important, well-balanced look at the nature of evil and psychopathy. For Christians, it’s a helpful look at the importance of faith, the healing power of worship, the miraculous restorative nature of forgiveness plus, sadly, the tendency for some to let their agendas usurp their compassion.
(Language alert. The book quotes from the killers’ journals, which included extreme uses of cursing and blasphemy.)
That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea (Marc Randolph, 2019)
So much has been written and said about the start of Netflix that it’s become a tired cliche. I cringe every time I hear about another talk or article entitled “Don’t Be a Blockbuster Church In a Netflix World!” So, I hesitated before reading this book. But I’m glad I did.
Written by Netflix’s co-founder and first CEO Marc Randolph, it’s a compelling story about pursuing an out-of-the-box idea (literally) from idea, to execution, to massive success. What you’re pursuing doesn’t need to become a global phenomenon in order to appreciate this story and learn a few lessons along the way about perseverance, collaboration, adaptation, and more.
(On a personal note, some of my joy in reading that this is a Silicon Valley story, which is where my wife, Shelley and I met and got married and had our first and third children, Veronica and Phil. But Netflix actually started over the hill in the small town of Scotts Valley, where I went to Bible College, and where Shelley and I pastored for several years and had our second child, Matt.)
What Did You Read This Year?
Did you read any of these? Did you read any other books you loved?
Let me know on Facebook, Instagram, or X.
Also, check out these articles to enhance your own reading journey.
(Disclosure: I will receive a small percent of the purchase price of any books you buy through clicking the Amazon links in the article.)
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