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In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be.
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 motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.
Perhaps most interesting and useful is Foster's chapter on the controversial Christian discipline of submission. According to Foster, submission does not demand self-hatred or loss of identity. Instead, it simply means growing secure in the conviction that "our happiness is not dependent on getting what we want" but on the fulfillment that naturally flows from love of one's neighbors. Such wise and encouraging suggestions have helped many readers to discard the idea that discipline is an onerous duty and to move toward a liberating and simpler idea of discipline--whose defining character, as Foster never forgets, is joy. --Michael Joseph Gross
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I've read this book 5 times in 8 years. I've been in churches where multiple people were reading it at the same time. I've been in small groups where everyone read it together. I've seen mature Christians read it. I've seen new Christians read it. And I've concluded that THIS BOOK CAN BE DANGEROUS.
The reason I say that is that even in the most non-legalistic churches I've ever seen, I've seen immature Christians stumble in part because they are overwhelmed by everything in this book. And when I say "stumble", I'm talking about people going back into severely addictive lifestyles. And the pressure they felt from feeling like they have to do all these disciplines contributed to that.
Unfortunately, it's easy for any of us to filter even the most well-intentioned, well-written book through our false self, that part of us that is performance- and fear-oriented. Spiritual disciplines do not change us; they open our hearts to the change that the Spirit of God wants to bring.
Again, I think this is a phenomenal book. But lest we feed our heads instead of our hearts and lest we frustrate ourselves with a standard of righteousness that Foster never intended, I'd like to humbly, humbly suggest some things:
* I personally recommend that people start with Henri Nouwen's "Way of the Heart" for a primer on spiritual discipline. It is just much simpler. The big stuff can come later. (Other books by Merton, Nouwen, Keating, etc., will work just as well.)
* Get a spiritual director--I'm not talking about a pastoral counselor, though it may be a pastor; I'm talking about a spiritually mature guide who is only interested in your spiritual development, not your money or your time.
* Read this book with other people who can provide feedback to you on how they see you responding.
* Keep it simple: Pray, pray, pray; trust the Lord to guide your heart into other disciplines. Attempt other disciplines when your motivation is to honor God and mortify your flesh, not when it is to "get something", even if that "something" is spiritual maturity.
Another book that makes a nice companion to this one is Dallas Willard's "The Spirit of the Disciplines." Willard's book is highly recommended by Foster who considered it the book of the decade (1980s) and now considers Willard's new book "The Divine Conspiracy" as the one he has been searching for all his life because of its biblically comprehensive, holistic and practical nature. Both Foster and Willard value the deep, spiritual insights of the older Christian classics (including those penned by so-called Christian "mystics") as seen by their many references and quotes. Also, both authors have seen that the deep spirituality that underlies those classics flowed from a self-disciplined life. Those who think that God will progressively sanctify them apart from their obedient and disciplined life are sorely mistaken and, if they don't change their thinking and practices, are in for a rude awakening.
A few words regarding the spiritual discipline of meditation are in order. Meditation in general involves learning through practice to control one's thoughts and redirect one's attention for the purpose of sustained concentration on a given object (whether physical via the eyes or mental via the imagination or spirit). This is NOT always easy, especially at first, because our thoughts tend to be wild and bounce disjointedly from thought to thought in a stream of consciousness. This is one reason why vocal prayer (which IS easy) is important during private prayer times to aid in concentration. This is also important to understand in order to appreciate the purpose of repetition in, for example, Eastern Orthodox practice (read "The Way of a Pilgrim" and notice the anonymous author's use of the Jesus Prayer and its corresponding fruit in his life). This is NOT "vain" repetition, but repetition with an important, sacred goal! Having made this point, I appreciate Foster's emphasis on obedience. He stated that "Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word." Obedience is indeed integral to Christian meditation and holy living because the Christian purpose of such a discipline is to sensitize us to the Holy Spirit's "still, small" voice. I also appreciated Foster's balanced understanding of detachment and attachment. He stated: "The detachment from the confusion all around us is in order to have a richer attachment to God." Amen! I am glad to find myself in a growing company of Christians of various denominations who appreciate the importance of Foster's book and the greater importance of practicing the disciplines in order to live a "devout and holy life" (*) that is pleasing and acceptable to God. (* Also recommended: William Law's "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life")
Foster speaks of the "inward disciplines" the "outward disciplines" and the "corporate disciplines" of the Christian life. As I flip through the book, I find myself in need of a tune-up.
It's that kind of book. It's one that you'll never master, but the joy is in the journey, and in following the Savior with the full passion of your heart. He's calling us to the life of Discipline and discipleship, not to a willy-nilly external Christianity. _Celebration_ is a breath of fresh air in an era of "easy believism" and cheap grace.
Foster has touched a generation of believers with this timeless classic.
