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Celebration of Discipline, Special Anniversary Edition: The Path to Spiritual Growth Hardcover – Special Edition, February 13, 2018
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A newly repackaged and updated 40th anniversary edition of the timeless guide that has helped numerous seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God, updated with a new introduction by the author and a new section: "Entering the Great Conversation about the Growth of the Soul."
Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found.
Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration bring us nearer to one another and to God.
Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities—and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperOne
- Publication dateFebruary 13, 2018
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.97 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-109780062803887
- ISBN-13978-0062803887
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Through the course of a lifetime we may encounter two or three books that we know have made a lasting impact, not only on the way we think, but on the way we live. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline has been this kind of book for me.” — Chris Hall, President, Renovaré
“Foster is not really the ‘spiritual disciplines guy.’ He is a Jesus guy. Through his life and writings he has led many of us back to indispensable wisdom on how to live a Jesus kind of life. May this movement go on and on.” — John Ortberg, teaching pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, author of If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat
Named among the top ten religious books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today magazine — Christianity Today
“The best modern book on Christian spirituality..... No other book apart from the Bible has been so helpful to me in the nurturing of my inward journey of prayer and spiritual growth.” — Ronald J. Sider, executive director, Evangelicals for Social Action
From the Back Cover
Since its publication in 1978, Celebration of Discipline has helped millions of seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God.
Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality and described by Christianity Today as one of the ten best books of the twentieth century, Celebration of Discipline explores the classic “Disciplines,” or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Richard J. Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that we can find a true path to spiritual growth.
Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the spirit, Foster shows how each movement contributes to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study offer avenues for personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service prepare us to help make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration bring us nearer to one another and to God.
Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how the Disciplines can become part of our daily activities—and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and “bring the abundance of God into our lives.” Featuring a new foreword, preface, and closing essay, Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.
About the Author
Richard J. Foster is the author of several bestselling books, including Celebration of Discipline, Streams of Living Water, Life with God, and Prayer, which was Christianity Today's Book of the Year and the winner of the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. He is the founder of Renovaré, an organization and a movement committed to the renewal of the church of Jesus Christ in all its multifaceted expressions, and the editor of The Life with God Bible.
Product details
- ASIN : 0062803883
- Publisher : HarperOne; Anniversary edition (February 13, 2018)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780062803887
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062803887
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.97 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #24 in Inspiration & Spirituality
- #184 in Christian Spiritual Growth (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Richard J. Foster is a renowned and well-regarded Christian author, teacher, and former pastor. His book, Celebration of Discipline is hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality. Some of his other books include Prayer, Freedom of Simplicity, and Streams of Living Water.
Foster is founder of Renovaré, a Christian organization, dedicated to helping people to become more like Jesus (www.Renovare.org). He earned a Doctor of Pastoral Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Foster has served as a pastor, taught at universities and seminaries, and spoken worldwide on the subject of spiritual formation.
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Foster writes with the authority of someone who not only knows about his subject matter but has made it an intimate and integral part of his person and life. The book's purpose is to respond to the desperate need in the world for deep people, specifically deep Christians, who would become "the answer to a hollow world" (1). The reviewer loved the analogy comparing ingrained habits of sin with the dirt on the ocean floor, even finding the perfect verse (Isa. 57:20). Foster points out that what people need is an inside job, which only God can do (6), and the spiritual disciplines are that "path of disciplined grace" (7) that will "reconstruct us into the image of Jesus Christ" (8). Foster completes his analogy by stating that the Spirit's work changes the natural motions of sin into natural motions of good (9). It is complete, well-supported, thoroughly accurate observations like this throughout the book that make Foster a true joy and inspiration to read.
While there were no bad chapters, some stood out as particularly exceptional for the reviewer, such as meditation (chapter two). The Christian's adversary, says Foster, majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds (15). The Christian's arsenal of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study are perhaps not often associated as a collective set of resources used offensively against an organized assault on multiple fronts. This, the reviewer perceives, is Foster's gift, to reveal old truths with new light, and thus become himself a powerful tool in the hands of the Spirit.
Through Foster's mature eyes, readers can see more things more clearly and more readily. Of particular interest to the reviewer was the masterful way he weaved together each set of disciplines as separate and distinct yet interactive and interdependent. One meditates better when one has studied well, and one fasts more richly while praying more fervently; likewise, one studies more deeply when one's spirit has united with God in prayer, and one's fast is more joyful when accompanied with great meditation. As Foster puts it, "We are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God" (55). When all twelve disciplines are considered together, each pair feeds and informs the other in a dazzling set of interwoven strands, creating a spiritual tapestry that is incomparably transcendent and infinitely beneficial. A church whose members gather with such deep, inner transformations truly can change the world.
Fenelon said it all with five words on the subject of simplicity, another chapter with particular appeal to the reviewer, "The pearl of the Gospel" (79). Foster adds his own generous and classic quotations, such as the following for solitude, "Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude" (96). Each of just these two jewels is enough subject matter for an entire pastoral retreat. Yet Foster is not content to add a few such rich snippets--his entire work is saturated with them. He found this from T. S. Eliot about modern culture, "Where will the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence" (96). Many have written about the dark night of the soul, but none the reviewer has read to date has married the entire painful experience with something positive, until now: "The dark night is one of the ways God brings us into a hush, a stillness so that he may work an inner transformation upon the soul" (102). It is one thing to point to the value of silence; it is quite another to make it so appealing as to be irresistible, such as Foster makes it with the following: "Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence" (109).
Directly related to the silence found in solitude, one's service to others also involves silence, as Foster captures, "To listen to others quiets and disciplines the mind to listen to God" (138). The matter of confession was a fresh issue on the reviewer's mind, having recently heard that an inmate confessed something egregious to his pastor, who then gave him the choice of turning himself in to Child Protective Services, or he would. Foster's words could not have been better timed. Rather than dismissing the discipline outright for fear of those who would abuse it, the reviewer came away with a more balanced and healthy view. Consider this from Foster: "We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed" (146).
The reviewer could use many pages just to skim the surface of the majesty of Foster's masterful work. His objective, of course, is met so very thoroughly, if only readers will take his words to heart and truly respond to this hollow world with more depth, sincerity, and maturity, all of which are only gained through the classic spiritual disciplines.
While some of the categories Foster defines may overlap with some others, he helps the reader engage with many aspects of Christian life that are often neglected. The very use of the term discipline is informative, as it calls to mind both discipleship and diligence. Many valuable insights and practical suggestions make this book a candidate for every library. For instance, the discussion on obedience within one's own strength (reflecting on Col.2:20-23 and Rom. Chaps. 7-8) shows exceptional insight, and is foundational to Christians beset by legalism and guilt. Foster clearly avoids disputed theological positions, which makes this book very useful in teaching the practical daily application of Christian faith.
Weaknesses in his teaching result when he fails to achieve this goal, a deplorable example of which is his labeling of Dispensationalism as heresy (p.52). Other positions that might be questioned include the idea of an "open universe" (i.e. God changes His mind in response to prayer), the Quaker defined discipline of simplicity (a broader caution about undue attachment to material things of the world might be better), and his reliance on common sense might be questioned by those who view mankind's reason as (at least) untrustworthy after the Edenic Fall. However, the many strengths of Foster's book far outweigh these minor points.
To deal with a couple points specifically, two issues from Foster's book stand out - one positive and one negative. Some experiencing bereavement would disagree vehemently with his assertions about prayer. He seems to assume that the outcome willed by God is knowable to the one praying, rather than the subject of the prayer and the fact that it is prayed at all. Thus he determines that "if is your will" is inappropriate prayer content. Like the leper in Mark 1:40-45, one can always pray "Lord if you are willing..." knowing that God COULD heal, but not that He WILL. Does the fact that God will give what is good to those of His children who ask (Matt.7:7-11) mean that we know or understand what good He will give?
On a positive note, Foster's discussion of confession is very thought provoking, especially in the classification as a corporate discipline. God works in believers' lives through others, and transparency with other believers about past and present struggles with sin and obedience may be one way that "God causes all things to work together for good..." It is a liberating idea that God can bring about His purposes despite and through our own weaknesses.
Top reviews from other countries
As I read COD I thought of Jesus words in Matthew 7, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” This book is a helpful guide in what it looks like to practically build a life on the teachings of Jesus.