You may be wondering why I've chosen to concentrate on the Spiritual Disciples as described in Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. If you have read this modern religious classic you already know what an inspirational, yet practical, guide his book can be. As the subtitle says, it is truly "The Path to Spiritual Growth."
I first read Foster's book in 1999. I had just returned to Hawaii from Tahiti, facing the end of my marriage. I was in need of guidance and comfort. God richly provided both, not only through this book, but by a new set of Christian friends, a wonderful church (Kaimuki Christian) and caring pastors. I was pretty beat up, psychologically and spiritually. Foster's book, more than any other, gave me hope that God had not abandoned me. Through the 12 Spiritual Disciplines I found renewal and grace. The next year, 2000, I tried concentrating on one discipline each month. I think I got through April (Study) but didn't follow through with the rest of the disciplines.
Now, all these years later, I'm ready to try again. With the help of writing this blog ... which will itself take discipline, I know ... and the help of fellow-travelers like you ... I hope to learn and practice all 12 of the Disciplines.
I highly recommend that you get your own copy of this book. You can order it from Amazon.com by clicking on the links on the Recommended Reading page of this blog. Or buy it from a local book store. Or download an eBook. Or check it out of a church or public library. Or borrow it from a friend. Wherever you can find a copy, please consider getting it prior to Jan. 1, 2014. On that date we will start with the Discipline of Meditation.
Here are some excerpts from the 20th Anniversary Edition from what other pastors and church leaders say about Foster's Celebration of Discipline.
“Richard Foster has impacted my life. As an activist, I have a tendency to get so involved in my own ‘good works’ that I often neglect the spiritual disciplines that keep me in touch with the sources of my strength and vision. I have so far to go, but Celebration of Discipline is a major help for moving me in the direction I ought to go.” Tony Campolo, author of Who Switched the Price Tags and Seven Deadly Sins
"Celebration of Discipline has been an influential, challenging, and helpful guide in my own spiritual walk. The book is like a much appreciated old friend. I am grateful to God for Richard Foster’s deep and powerful contribution to Christian spirituality, and I am encouraged to know that this contemporary Christian classic continues to help generations of readers in their walks with Christ.” Gary R. Collins, professor of psychology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“Celebration of Discipline is a popular book in the best sense of that word— it is for the people. Too often the spiritual disciplines are thought to be reserved either for the spiritual giants, or for those privileged souls who do not have to cope with the ‘distractions’ of a family or a full-time job. Richard Foster rescues the disciplines from the specialists and the ascetics and returns them to the ordinary disciples for whom they are intended. His vision of a ‘disciple in training’ embraces both the assembly-line worker and the academic, the harried mother of small children, the office worker, and the cleric.” William C. Frey, former dean, Trinity School for Ministry
"Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster carefully explores the biblical means for knowing and following the Savior in contemporary society and offers practical suggestions to believers for everyday living.” Mark O. Hatfield, former U.S. senator from Oregon
“Celebration of Discipline won me when it was first published, a fresh voice of reality… and there is even more need for Richard Foster’s wisdom today. Indeed, his offerings to us of the joy of discipline will help us to seek the kingdom of God in a more joyous and less moralistic way than late-twentieth-century Christendom has tended to urge on us. He sings along the fine line between crippling permissiveness and self-indulgence, and equally destructive legalism and fear. Whether he is writing of meditation and contemplation, or of studying, or of fasting, Richard Foster gives us a spiritually healthy and happily robust view of discipline. If everybody in this country could read— and heed— this book, what a difference it would make to the planet— nay, to the cosmos.” Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time and The Crosswicks Journals
"Celebration of Discipline is a contagion of joy that led me past cheap grace to a contemplative lifestyle that not only changed my life, but gave my renovated ministry to a congregation grateful for the changes.” Calvin Miller, author of The Book of 7 Truths and The Singer Trilogy
“Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard Foster has ‘found’ the spiritual disciplines that the modern world stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them. For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life.” Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message, Leap Over a Wall and Reversed Thunder
“... I've always liked Foster’s practicality. There is mystery here, but it is not inaccessible, because we are shown how to practice the disciplines in a detailed and concrete way. The spiritual is fused with the physical; the word is again made flesh; heaven and earth seem joined in this writing.” Luci Shaw, author of Listen to the Green
“... it isn’t enough to just believe. What God wants is practice, the practice of worship, the practice of discipline, the practice of an experienced faith. I firmly believe this is a book for our time! It is an oasis in a dry land that can lead us moderns to a fresh spiritual drink from the waters of a spirituality rooted deep in the Christian tradition.” Robert Webber, professor of theology, Wheaton College
"If you wish to know in your self the reality of the gracious life of God seen in the Bible, you may find no better counselor than Richard Foster.” Dallas Willard, author of The Spirit of the Disciplines
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