Christians that made life better and inspired a movement

Adoniram Judson

Significant contribution – The spread of Christianity in Burma.

Judson and his wife left the United States for Burma in 1812 and became the trailblazers of modern American missions work. Anderson’s work is an even-handed and thorough presentation of Adoniram’s strengths and weaknesses as he struggled to establish a ministry hampered by remarkable hardships.

His perseverance was rewarded with the completion of the Burmese Bible translation and the establishment of 100 churches.

Amy Carmichael

Significant contribution – Saving many children in India from prostitution.

Amy is best known as the helper of India’s underprivileged children. Carmichael spent 55 uninterrupted years in southern India, saving many children from prostitution through the establishment of the Dohnavur Fellowship, which still exists today.

The book’s title comes from Carmichael’s evaluation of the missionary experience as a chance to die to oneself. Her works have influenced much in the growth of Christianity in India.

Ben Carson, M.D.

Significant contribution – Christian witnessing in US politics.

Benjamin Solomon “Ben” Carson Sr. is an American retired neurosurgeon, author, and politician who is the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development nominee.

Raised by a single mother in inner-city Detroit and plagued by a terrible temper as a child, Carson became famous as head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins at the age of thirty-three.

He is known as the first person to successfully separate twins born joined at the back of the head. In Healing Hands, Carson reveals the difference his Christian faith has made in his remarkable successes.

He authored the book America the Beautiful (2013), in which he wrote: “I believe it is a very good idea for physicians, scientists, engineers, and others trained to make decisions based on facts and empirical data to get involved in the political arena.

Today, Ben founded the Carson Scholars Fund, which awards scholarships to students in grades 4–11. In 2016, he withdrew his bid for the White House.

Brother Andrew

Significant contribution – Open doors, saving the persecuted Christians.

Andrew van der Bijl is a Christian missionary famous for his exploits in smuggling Bibles to communist countries at the height of the Cold War. He founded Open Doors, a mission that supports persecuted Christians in over 60 countries where they consider Christianity to be socially or legally discouraged or oppressed.

Open Doors has changed and saved thousands through prayers, aid, spiritual support, and covering.

His book God’s Smuggler is a must-read, inspiring classic of missions and miracles. It recounts Brother Andrew’s remarkable life of Bible smuggling behind the Iron Curtain. He is known for praying, “Lord, make seeing eyes blind,” before he stopped at the border of a communist country for his car to be inspected.

Brother Yun

Significant contribution – Challenging the Chinese government towards the love of Jesus for China.

Yun became known when his book The Heavenly Man was released in 2002. In his early years, Brother Yun was prepared to become a prominent leader in China’s secret house-church movement. The Heavenly Man is a window on the extreme persecution of Christians in the East that has too often gone unnoticed by those in the West.

After escaping from China, Yun took asylum in Germany. In 2001, he was imprisoned in Myanmar for seven months. As a leader of the “Back to Jerusalem Movement,” Yun seeks to send thousands of missionaries out from China into the countries between China and Israel, which are among the least Christianised in the world.

C. S. Lewis

Significant contribution – Children’s book that led to knowing Jesus.

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He wrote more than thirty books, including the famous Chronicles of Narnia.

When the movie adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) was released, it became a useful tool to evangelize young people.

Charles Colson

Significant contribution – Influencing the leadership of distinguished politicians & changing the landscape of prison inmates.

Colson was infamously a household name for his role in the Watergate scandal, which led to his spiritual journey and awakening. Experiencing a personal rebirth during the legal proceedings, Nixon’s famous hatchet man (1931-2012) pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was the first to serve the time of all those convicted.

Colson became an outspoken Christian and influenced politicians’ decisions. He also founded the Prison Fellowship, which ministers to inmates.

Prison Fellowship equips wardens, prison staff, and volunteers, including men and women serving time, to create safer, more rehabilitative prisons that prepare prisoners to return to their communities as good neighbors.

It also advocates for a criminal justice system that upholds restorative values so that communities are safer, victims are respected, and those who have caused harm are transformed.

Charles Spurgeon

Significant contribution – The great revival of 18th century England.

Spurgeon (1834-1892) is known for his extraordinary ability as an English preacher in 19th-century England. His Metropolitan Tabernacle would seat 5,000 and hold another 1,000.

To date, Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations. He is known as the “Prince of Preachers” and has transformed and saved the souls of thousands.

When he died, some 100,000 lined the streets as a two-mile funeral parade followed his hearse from the Tabernacle to the cemetery. Flags flew at half-staff, and shops and pubs were closed. He was influential in transforming the lives of a nation towards Christ.

Corrie Ten Boom

Significant contribution – Saved the lives of nearly 800 Jewish children.

A Dutch family of watchmakers, Corrie joins the Resistance against the Nazis, creating a false wall in Corrie’s bedroom to hide Jews. When the Nazis eventually raided the home, all the hidden Jews remained concealed, but the ten Booms were taken away to the prison camp.

Corrie ten Boom and her family helped Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and, by all accounts, saved nearly 800 lives. But it was Corrie’s forgiveness of his oppressors that inspired many Christians to do the same and adhere to the humility of Jesus.

Darlene Deibler Rose

Significant contribution – Witnessing in the unreached New Guinea.

While Darlene Deibler Rose and her husband were serving as missionaries in Papua New Guinea during World War II, they were captured by the Japanese and placed in separate prison camps.

Though her husband died in his camp, Rose amazingly survived four years and was liberated. Her life is full of miracles, and her testimony and perseverance have led many to know Christ.

She lived nearly thirty years as a Christian missionary in New Guinea. Her unshakable faith in Jesus inspires many Christians who have read her book.

David Brainerd

Significant contribution – He died young, but his legacy lives through his inspiring journals of faith.

David Brainerd (1718-1747) was expelled from the Yale University. Appearing to have lost a chance of success, he instead spent the rest of his brief life preaching the gospel to various American Indian peoples in New Jersey and neighboring states.

Though he died of tuberculosis at the age of 29, his journals have, over the centuries, been an appeal to prayer and Christian commitment for many key missionary figures.

David Wilkerson

Significant contribution – Saving the lives of teenage addicts in the US.

In 1958, David Wilkerson (1931-2011) felt the call to leave his rural Pennsylvania upbringing and share the hope of the gospel with gang members and drug addicts in New York City.

His 1963 book, The Cross and the Switchblade, is a bestseller (50 million copies) book that recounts the story of Nicky Cruz, who turned from gang life to Christ and Christian ministry.

Wilkerson is the founder of Teen Challenge Ministry, an addiction recovery program. This ministry plays an important role in helping American families deal with problems with alcohol, cocaine, meth, and other drug abuse.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Significant contribution – A Pastor and spy who defied the Nazis.

As the Nazis began to overtake Europe in 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a comfortable ocean’s length away from his homeland, invited to teach at New York City’s Union Theological Seminary. But he was not at ease and chose to return to his homeland to show fellow Christians and countrymen how the gospel leads one to fight for justice, even by subversive means.

In his final days in a German concentration camp, his legacy as a theologian and activist continues to inspire other Christian leaders to stand their ground in the many adversities that great Christian leaders face amid a ravenous world.

Although he died as a dissident in the eyes of the Nazis, he is a hero to many Christians who are considered martyred.

The Duggars

Significant contribution – Beacon of hope, drawing families towards Christ.

The Duggars, with ten sons and nine daughters, have become America’s best-known mega-family through television exposure. Perhaps just a reality show to some, their daily struggles and lessons have influenced many Americans, and people outside the US know how to deal with real-life issues.

Guided by spiritual truths, the Duggars’ Christian faith has strengthened many parents and children struggling with raising their families and finding victory, hope, and joy through faith in Jesus.

Eric Liddell

Significant contribution – Inspiring Olympian.

Lidell’s life (1902-1945) was made famous by the 1981 film Chariots of Fire (Academy Award, Best Picture). Lidell was a Scottish athlete with exceptional speed, winning the 400 meters at the 1924 Paris Olympics. However, as McCasland shows, Liddell was ultimately driven by what he saw as a greater calling and gave up running full-time to serve as a missionary in China.

He became famous when he announced he could not run in the Olympic race because the finals were scheduled for Sunday. Sunday was a day of worship and rest for Eric. He would not run even if he were his country’s only hope of winning an Olympic gold medal.

This made the Scottish people very upset with him. They wrote terrible things about him in the newspaper, and some called him a traitor. But Eric stood firm. He had never run on Sunday and never would, not even for an Olympic gold medal.

With little time remaining before the Olympics began, Eric trained and qualified for another race not scheduled on a Sunday. Eric knew his chance of winning the 400-meter race was slim because two of the runners in this race had set a world record times.

In addition, on the day of the race, Eric was assigned the worst lane. But a note in his pocket encouraged him. The team trainer had given it to him before he left his hotel room. It read, “He who honors Him, He (God) will honor.” Liddell knew his decision not to run on Sunday honored God.

George Muller

Significant contribution – Helper of orphans and children, demonstrated by outstanding faith.

Muller was known as the “helper of orphans” in 19th-century England. Despite harsh times, he never asked anyone for monetary assistance. His autobiography tells of incredible ways in which, through continuous prayer, the needs of the children under his care were met.

What is less known about him is his pre-Christian reputation as a thief and his later preaching tours, which took him to forty-two countries. His testimony of faith remains a great example and inspiration to many church leaders today.

George Whitefield

Significant contribution – The great awakening.

George Whitefield (1714-1770) and the Wesley brothers are best known for his evangelical movement and revival. America’s 19th-century evangelists traveled across towns to proclaim the gospel in the open air, sometimes unannounced, and attract thousands upon thousands of people.

Whitefield’s bold speeches caused a spiritual awakening that influenced the beginning of the intentional and radical Christian movement, or “great awakening.”

Gladys Aylward

Significant contribution – Beloved protector of the orphans in China.

Aylward (1902-1970) was a British housemaid who denied membership in a sending agency for missionaries to China. She paid her fare to China and became a revered protector of children among the Chinese people. Her life work became the subject of a major motion picture, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.”

She saved orphans and adopted several herself, intervening in a volatile prison riot and advocating prison reform, risking her life many times to help those in need.

Aylward led over 100 orphans to safety over the mountains during WW2. She won the hearts of the Chinese people. When she was denied reentry to mainland China, she went to Taiwan and founded the Gladys Aylward Orphanage, where she worked until she died in 1970.

Hudson Taylor

Significant contribution – The most influential Christian missionary.

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) spent 51 years in ministry to China as a preacher, translator, author, and visionary and is widely considered one of the most influential Christian missionaries of all time.

His book Spiritual Secret provides an intimate look at what drove Taylor to accomplish so much and influence many, including his abiding trust in God and self-denying allegiance to those he served.

Joanne Shetler

Significant contribution – God’s power transformed the lives of the Balangao tribe of the Philippines.

Shetler endured the slow and arduous task of learning the Balangao language of the Philippines and translating the Bible for this group of unreached people.

The result was a spiritual showdown in which the people were forced to see God’s power through his Word as more potent than the spirits, who constantly demanded more sacrifices. In her book, “And the Word Came With Power,” she accounts for how Christians can access God’s powers in witnessing Jesus.

John Bunyan

Significant contribution – Pilgrim’s Progress

Bunyan (1628-1688), author of the famous allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, opens a window into his existential crisis when he came to the Christian faith.

He describes how, as a young man, he lived a self-centered life of open rebellion against God and, even in times of conviction, doubted that God’s grace was sufficient to overcome his state. He eventually gave in and went on to minister as a preacher and write one of the enduring classics of the Christian faith.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Significant contribution – Changing the mindset and giving hope to the disabled.

A diving accident at the age of 17 put Joni in a wheelchair, unable to move from the shoulders down. Learning to paint with her mouth, she became an accomplished artist and founded Joni and Friends to help the disabled. Now considered a classic, her book An Unforgettable Story, about the triumph of faith, has sold 3,000,000 copies.

Joni has encouraged other people with disabilities to rise above their circumstances, face their fate, and accomplish the greater things in life.

Keith Green

Significant contribution – The rise of Christian pop.

In Keith’s biography, No Compromise, his widow Melody brings us from Green’s conversion to Jesus out of California’s hippie music scene through his rise as a Christian pop star and his tragic death at the age of 28, along with two of his children.

Those who read this book understood why Green was such a polarizing figure. His exceptional musical talent and radical simplicity of faith coupled with a sometimes scathingly critical spirit over what he saw as compromises to Christian holiness and the purity of the gospel.

Louis Zamperini

Significant contribution – A testimony of forgiveness that has shaken unforgiving Christians.

Louis Silvie “Louie” Zamperini was a US prisoner of war survivor in World War II, a Christian evangelist, and an Olympic distance runner. We should take inspiration from his unbelievable survival story from a troubled child to Olympic runner to downed Bombardier lost forty-six days at sea to tortured Japanese prisoner of war to a born-again Christian.

Martin Luther

Significant contribution – The Protestant movement.

Martin Luther is perhaps the most popular reformer of the Catholic faith. While he did not intend to break Roman Catholicism, he wanted people to know the truth about God’s salvation. His thesis dismantled Rome’s claws and allowed faithful followers of Jesus to know “true faith.”

He aligned good works as a result and not a cause for salvation, and that penance and church membership are no means a way to heaven.

Nabeel Qureshi

Significant contribution – Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus in the Muslim world.

A former Muslim gives an insider’s account of Muslim life, theology, and his conversion to Christianity. Qureshi prided himself on his ability to disassemble the Christian worldview until a fateful day when he met a Christian who could finally defend his faith.

Qureshi now lectures and debates at public and private universities worldwide, explaining his path to faith in Christ through historical reasoning and spiritual encounters. As a result, many Muslims have come to the saving knowledge of who the honest Jesus is.

Peter Marshall

Significant contribution – Influencing the US Senate.

At 24, a poor Scottish immigrant named Peter Marshall (1902-1949) came to the United States and rose to renown as a preacher, later becoming Chaplain of the United States Senate.

His wife, Catherine Marshall, wrote their love story, which became a well-known film. Marshall’s ministry as a preacher was cut short at the age of 46 when he died of a heart attack.

Sadhu Sundar Singh

Significant contribution – Introducing miracles in India through the power of Jesus.

Sundar Singh (1889-1929) was born into Sikhism in northern India, persecuting Christians around him until a vision of Jesus Christ as a young suicidal teen prompted him to do an about-face. He took up the life of a wandering Christian evangelist in Hindu attire throughout India, Tibet, and Afghanistan.

Sundar Singh had miraculous experiences, including power over disease and animals. The evangelist who left a singular mark on Indian Christianity was last seen in 1929 as he departed for a mission in the Tibetan foothills.

Steve Saint

Significant contribution – Christianity in action, Ecuador

Steve Saint’s missionary father was murdered in 1956 in Ecuador during an attempt to make contact with an isolated tribe. His unbelievable story of forgiveness and reconciliation became his ultimate witness as a follower of Christ.

The same people group (where his father was murdered) invited him and his family to return and live among them in Ecuador.

Particularly striking is the development of a close friendship with one of the men who murdered his father, as well as his recounting of the events from the cultural perspective of the tribe. The book inspired a motion picture of the same name in 2006.

Tony Dungy

Significant contribution – Witnessing in NFL.

In 2007, Dungy became the first African-American NFL coach to win the Super Bowl. Before that year, he had also taken his team to the playoffs eight out of ten seasons. More impressive than his accomplishments on the field is the respect Coach Dungy has earned for being a man of integrity.

Dungy continues to witness for Jesus through his book Quiet Strength, which reveals the secrets to his success, practices, and priorities that have kept him on track despite overwhelming obstacles, including personal trials, firings, and stereotypes.

William Carey

Significant contribution – Father of modern missions.

Carey (1761-1834) is the father of modern missions. He was a British Christian missionary, Baptist minister, translator, social reformer, and cultural anthropologist. After working as a shoemaker and pastor, he became convinced that Christians like him should share the gospel outside their comfort zones. He spent 41 years in India and translated the Bible into Sanskrit, Bengali, and other languages.

William J. Murray

Significant contribution – Stood on faith against his atheist mother.

Murray is the son of the famous atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, whose 1963 victory at the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools. In his book My Life Without God, The account gives an intimate picture of the dysfunction of the home, including William being unaware that Madalyn was his mother for the first several years of his life.

After struggles with crime and drugs, he became a Christian at the age of 30. His mother and brother were later murdered. William exposed the lies of atheists that brought many people to faith in Christ. Murray is often used as an illustration of the faulty and deceptive atheism in America.

William Tyndale

Significant contribution – Authentic Bible translation.

Tyndale (c. 1494-1536) left England, where it was illegal to possess a Bible in the vernacular, to produce the first English translation of the Old and New Testaments, translated directly from Hebrew and Greek.

It was not easy for Tyndale, who faced death and ridicule. His Bible translation has inspired many other Bible versions that are used in different languages.

William Wilberforce

Significant contribution – A heroic campaign that saved thousands of lives from slavery.

Wilberforce is Britain’s most famous 19th-century politician. Born into luxury and privilege, he confronted his country’s moral and social problems. Amidst bitter opposition, Wilberforce won his fight to abolish British homeland slavery in 1807 and British colonial slavery in 1833. His story is recounted in the highly acclaimed 2006 movie Amazing Grace.

He is dubbed “the prime minister of a cabinet of philanthropists” and once supported 69 philanthropic causes. He gave away one-quarter of his annual income to the poor. He fought on behalf of chimney sweeps, single mothers, Sunday schools, orphans, and juvenile delinquents.

William Wilberforce helped found parachurch groups like the Society for Bettering the Cause of the Poor, the Church Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Antislavery Society.

Inspiring Christian men and women that influenced history