I know most on this site are scholars and advanced Bible students or would be. What about the average person in the pew? If you could suggest reading material, other than the Bible, that would help that person be a better Christian, what material would be on that list?
"Mere Christianity", "Pursuit of God", "Power of Prayer", for example.
The problem is, there are no "averages". Everyone is at a different point on their walk with God. Everyone has a different background. A newly Muslim-converted-Christian would need different reading material than a veteran prayer warrior...
I can give you some of my personal favourites:
* John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
* Francis Chan, Crazy Love
* Philip Yancey, What's so Amazong about Grace?
* RT Kendall, A Vision of Jesus (although, some of his more recent books might be better suited, such as Total Forgiveness or Holy Spirit, is that You? I've not read them yet though.)
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Jan, you are certainly correct. Maybe favorites would be a better choice.
Since I read it, I have felt like the #1 non-Bible book that every Christian should read is J.I. Packer's Knowing God.
I really enjoyed Tozer's the Pursuit of God.
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Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
I'd throw on, from my own experience, The Holiness of God by RC Sproul.
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Reading is great, but don't forget learning by hearing! My wife and I have an audio copy of Knowing God. We listen to it while driving on long trips. People who have long commutes can also take advantage of audio. We have also listened to several of the sermons from the D.A. Carson collection. Many of these sermons would be suitable for expanding the horizon of the person in the pew (such as myself ).
Recent improvements in text to speech have made the Logos reader, at least on Windows, quite reasonable.
I have found these to be very helpful. I even gifted the set to a friend of mine and she loves it:
Jerry Bridges:
https://www.logos.com/product/2769/the-pursuit-of-holiness
https://www.logos.com/products/search?q=all+of+grace by Spurgeon may also be good for you.
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Being one of those average Joes, I would recommend for those who want to go further in their walk, "Why Revival Tarries" by Leonard Ravenhill. There are a lot of good books, and a lot of good teachers/speakers/authors/pastors etc., but there are very few that hit me like this one did. I did some serious weeping and praying while reading this. There is a sermon of his called "Where is the Fire?" on youtube or SermonAudio archives that gives you an audio taste of what to expect.
If there are any that are wanting to become a pastor, Spurgeon's "Lectures to my Students" is really good. I found it a challenge to read, because of how the book was laid out physically, and challenged me spiritually.
"Desiring God" by John Piper is a good challenger as well. Piper turns me off in some way. It's not that I disagree with him, but sometimes, his passionate way of writing can be hard for me to relate to. But when I was passionate about something he was passionate about, wow!