In Celebration of Celebration of Discipline
In Celebration of Celebration of Discipline
To honor this special anniversary of the publication of Celebration of Discipline, a number of leaders and teachers were asked to reflect on the meaning of the book in their lives and their ministries and on its effect on the teaching and practice of spirituality in the Church as a whole.
Their comments, which invite deeper appreciation of this book and of the centrality of the Spiritual Disciplines to the Christian’s life, follow.
“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
“Foster’s enduring gift is to revive ancient insights and translate them into authentic and life-giving discipleship for such a time as this. As a word of profound and prophetic wisdom worth pondering again and again, this book comes wrapped in Richard’s gentle voice. Every page of Celebration overflows from this wellspring, and my thanks to God overflows with it.”
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Calvin College, author of Vainglory
“When I first read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline some thirty years ago, he threw me a lifeline. In identifying the spiritual habits of Jesus and showing us how to incorporate them into the rhythms of our own lives, Richard helped me understand that this is the way we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the transformation of our hearts. It was brilliant! It was just what I needed. It has made all the difference. Thank you, Richard!”
Miriam Dixon, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Golden, Colorado
“The past decade has seen a very deep and renewed interest in spirituality in many areas of the church. Those of us who are evangelical Protestants have needed a corrective to our activism and a return to our roots of an authentic walk with God. Celebration of Discipline certainly has been one of the key books in this renewal. I personally was greatly helped when I first read it and have recommended it widely. Richard Foster’s lucid writing plus his emphasis on disciplined grace have made this one of the notable books of our time. I often refer to it. Those of us who are concerned for world evangelization need to recognize that this vast task can never be accomplished apart from an even deeper rootage in Christ, instructed by the Word of God and nurtured by His Spirit. I welcome the new edition of Celebration of Discipline.”
Leighton Ford, Leighton Ford Ministries
"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. How encouraging it was to learn that there were concrete, practical means of grace that could help me grow more deeply into the image of Christ. There is still much transformation ahead, but by God’s grace my life has been significantly changed for the better through this special book, as have the lives of countless others. Congratulations on its 40th anniversary!"
Chris Hall, President, Renovaré
“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
“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
“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 Leap Over a Wall and Reversed Thunder
“Where cheap and tawdry values shape our society, Richard Foster holds up for us a model that is both solid and costly. The disciplines about which he writes so boldly and clearly are the convincing disciplines practiced by Christ himself. . . .
“One of Foster’s most helpful conclusions to me, personally, is that the disciplines in themselves are valueless—they are simply means to a greater end—freedom. . . . [J]ust as the laws (or disciplines) of physics free a sailboat to turn a keen headwind into forward movement against that wind, so the spiritual and physical disciplines allow us to turn our limitations and liabilities into redemptive freedoms and benefits for ourselves, our churches, society, and God.
“And 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
“Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline is the best modern book on Christian spirituality. I have read it about a half a dozen times in the last decade and have used it as a text in classes and small groups. . . . 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
“Over the past two decades my own personal spiritual pilgrimage has taken me away from the propositional and rationalistic mind-set that proclaims an intellectualized proof-oriented faith toward a Christianity of practice and experience.
“Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline calls us all to that kind of faith. It says 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, author of Ancient-Future Worship
“In Celebration of Discipline Richard Foster has given us a rare gift. This book has helped me connect with truths I already know but keep forgetting. It has drawn me once again to a treasure that my monastic life has always encouraged me to explore, my inner life. Richard Foster beckons me to the deeps with the promise that going to the depths does not require the drudgery of a morbid, gloomy asceticism that breaks my spirit but rather a joyful discipline that opens a door to freedom and becomes a celebration.
“I have long suspected that the best way to authentic joy is through obedience. Obedience, however, is a word that turns stale in our mouths today. How delightful, then, to discover a book that brings a fresh image to obedience. Indeed, the strength of this book is that obedience to the traditional Christian disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation, simplicity, spiritual guidance, et cetera is presented as a celebration rather than a law. . . .
“Richard Foster has offered us some ways to do the daily things deeply. The celebration of each discipline in this book hands us a tool that can be useful in helping us to integrate our inner and outer lives.”
Macrina Wiederkehr, O.S.B., author of A Tree Full of Angels
“Celebration of Discipline has quietly asserted itself in the lives of multitudes around the globe, and has taken its place as a guide to the uplands of the spiritual life. Everywhere I go I meet those whose lives have been changed by encountering it. It places us on the path of life with those who have succeeded in walking with Jesus in every circumstance and shows us accessible patterns of action through which interaction with his Kingdom is assured to us. This is the secret of its power. 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
“Foster has taught me more about prayer and living faithfully than just about any other living author. This book will become a challenging and formative part of your spiritual life.”
Lauren Winner, author of Wearing God