What to read next
by A.W. Tozer
A.W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God to wake the church up from a faith of correct ideas but cold hearts, insisting that God can actually be known and experienced, not just believed in. It's a short, intense book, and groups that finish it are usually hungry for more of the same kind of writing: older devotional classics that treat the inner life with real seriousness, whether through direct teaching, memoir, or allegory. Some of the books below sit in that same reflective, God-centered register, while others turn toward suffering or toward Tozer's own theology proper, giving a leader room to go deeper or to shift the conversation toward a related need in the group.
Our The Pursuit of God guide runs 13 sessions with 101 discussion questions.
These are guides from our own catalog, ordered by how much each book shares with The Pursuit of God: subject and themes first, then the kind of group it suits, then the same author. It is an editorial comparison of what the books are about — not a ranking of which is better, and not a claim about what other groups chose.
by Oswald Chambers
Chambers shares Tozer's conviction that the Christian life is about surrender and communion rather than moral effort or correct doctrine, and both books press the reader personally rather than just informing them. This guide is built around daily readings, so it moves in shorter, denser bursts across 13 sessions instead of Tozer's sustained chapter-by-chapter argument.
by Brother Lawrence
Brother Lawrence takes up the same core idea Tozer champions, that ordinary believers can walk in continuous, conscious awareness of God, but he grounds it in the plain routines of kitchen work rather than in Tozer's more exhortative prose. At 7 sessions it is the shortest and gentlest option here, good for a group that wants the same theme with less ground to cover.
by Saint Augustine
Augustine's restless search for God and his line about the heart finding no rest until it rests in God echo exactly what Tozer is calling the church back to. The approach differs though, since Augustine tells his own life story as a prayer to God across 12 sessions, giving the group a narrative and autobiographical shape that Tozer's book does not attempt.
by Thomas à Kempis
Thomas à Kempis shares Tozer's impatience with religious activity that never becomes real union with Christ, and both books favor short, quotable, exhortative chapters over sustained argument. This is the longer study of the two, 15 sessions and 105 questions, and its tone leans more toward monastic self-examination than Tozer's more expansive, worshipful style.
by Hannah Hurnard
Hurnard's allegory takes the same journey toward deeper communion with God that Tozer describes, but tells it as a story, following Much-Afraid through fear and sorrow toward the High Places rather than teaching directly. It's a good next step for a group that respondsed well to Tozer's ideas but would welcome a narrative, character-driven format for 12 sessions.
by John Bunyan
Bunyan's allegory covers the same territory Tozer maps in prose, the soul's movement through doubt, temptation, and longing toward God, but does it through Christian's journey and its cast of vivid characters rather than through direct spiritual teaching. Groups that want a story to discuss scene by scene, across 12 sessions, may find this a livelier complement to Tozer's more meditative approach.
by C.S. Lewis
Lewis writes from a very different occasion, the sudden loss of his wife, but he is wrestling with the same question Tozer raises about whether God is truly known and present, only now under the pressure of real suffering rather than by invitation. It's considerably shorter, 6 sessions, and far more raw and unguarded in tone, useful for a group moving from pursuit of God toward the harder experience of his apparent absence.
by A.W. Tozer
Written by Tozer himself, this book turns from the experience of pursuing God to the character of the God being pursued, working through his attributes one by one. It is a much longer study, 24 sessions and 170 questions, and reads more like sustained theological reflection than the personal, urgent tone of The Pursuit of God, making it a natural but weightier follow-up.
Session and question counts checked .