1.0Church Answershttps://churchanswers.com7 Non-Ministry Books Every Pastor Should Read | Church Answersrich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="NWMaIClCwS"><a href="https://churchanswers.com/blog/7-non-ministry-books-every-pastor-should-read/">7 Non-Ministry Books Every Pastor Should Read</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://churchanswers.com/blog/7-non-ministry-books-every-pastor-should-read/embed/#?secret=NWMaIClCwS" width="600" height="338" title="“7 Non-Ministry Books Every Pastor Should Read” — Church Answers" data-secret="NWMaIClCwS" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">
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https://churchanswers.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Stack-Of-Books-With-Coffee.png1200628For reasons beyond the scope of this post, my younger self went many years without reading anything not at least indirectly related to pastoral ministry or my Christian growth. Commentaries, works of theology, homiletics, and church leadership comprised the bulk of my reading. Biographies had to be missionary biographies…unless they were biographies of Christian athletes. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that diet, especially for a pastor. Pastors surely want to improve their preaching craft, stay current on theological trends, and glory in the stories of our Christian forebears. But, just like anything else, ministry-related reading can become a bubble, within which expanded thinking is impossible, while endless refining becomes the norm. More than a decade ago, then still in full-time pastoral ministry, I shifted my reading to include more “regular” history, biographies of not-necessarily-Christian people, fiction, science, and more. I began (and still am) expanding my author list well beyond the easily recognizable names of pastors and theologians whose books dominate pastoral libraries. It’s been one of the best decisions I ever made. So, in that spirit and in no particular order, here are seven non-ministry books I think every pastor should read.