Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1998. 9780060628390.
Content Summary In the book Celebration of Discipline the author discuses 12 essential disciplines to living an effective spirit lead life. These 12 disciplines are primarily focused on self evaluation techniques using a biblical lens as a reference point. The book is divided in three major parts and attempts to create a path to a well balanced spiritual life that will ultimately have an effect on both the physical and psychological life as well. The First Section of the book focuses on the disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, or the “inward” disciplines. These four disciplines deal directly …show more content…
These disciplines represented the “lifestyle” disciplines. Their primary goal is to cultivate a way of living that allowed one to practice the inward disciplines and experience optimum growth. These disciplines to me had less to do with direct contact with God as much as they did with creating a healthy sustainable state of mind to allow oneself to meet with God. Finally, the third section of foster’s work focuses on the “corporate” disciplines. These disciplines include Confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. These final four disciplines are taught to be celebrated in community with other believers. Foster uses this tri-fold system almost like a pyramid, allowing each section of the book to build progressively on each other. The book offers a satisfying sense of balance and consideration with looked at as a …show more content…
To put it simply, the celebration of discipline is a practical guide to living a life completely obedient to the Holy Spirit. As with many views on the Holy Spirit, Results may very. One of the books strongest weaknesses is the subjective and murky views that Foster holds. He attempts to back these views up with a large amount of scripture, but in my opinion are to generalized to hold up the rigid, and well defined views of Foster. For those who agree with the quaker roots of Foster, they will find immense joy, breakthrough, and warmth from the book. Others however may find immense disappointment of the books dream like beliefs that can be seen as a pie in the sky philosophy, particularly in section two. The book has many strong views and is entirely dependent on the personal spiritual philosophies of the reader. There is little grey area for the readership. It is either loved or hated, but seldomly tolerated. The most notable sections of the book are ones that challenge westernized christianity and even westernized thinking as a whole. In multiple chapters such as meditation, fasting, simplicity, submission, and many others, the reader is called to examine His or Her faith from the view point of a human desperate for God rather than a christian of any modernized, consumerist culture
Content Summary In the book Celebration of Discipline the author discuses 12 essential disciplines to living an effective spirit lead life. These 12 disciplines are primarily focused on self evaluation techniques using a biblical lens as a reference point. The book is divided in three major parts and attempts to create a path to a well balanced spiritual life that will ultimately have an effect on both the physical and psychological life as well. The First Section of the book focuses on the disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, or the “inward” disciplines. These four disciplines deal directly …show more content…
These disciplines represented the “lifestyle” disciplines. Their primary goal is to cultivate a way of living that allowed one to practice the inward disciplines and experience optimum growth. These disciplines to me had less to do with direct contact with God as much as they did with creating a healthy sustainable state of mind to allow oneself to meet with God. Finally, the third section of foster’s work focuses on the “corporate” disciplines. These disciplines include Confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. These final four disciplines are taught to be celebrated in community with other believers. Foster uses this tri-fold system almost like a pyramid, allowing each section of the book to build progressively on each other. The book offers a satisfying sense of balance and consideration with looked at as a …show more content…
To put it simply, the celebration of discipline is a practical guide to living a life completely obedient to the Holy Spirit. As with many views on the Holy Spirit, Results may very. One of the books strongest weaknesses is the subjective and murky views that Foster holds. He attempts to back these views up with a large amount of scripture, but in my opinion are to generalized to hold up the rigid, and well defined views of Foster. For those who agree with the quaker roots of Foster, they will find immense joy, breakthrough, and warmth from the book. Others however may find immense disappointment of the books dream like beliefs that can be seen as a pie in the sky philosophy, particularly in section two. The book has many strong views and is entirely dependent on the personal spiritual philosophies of the reader. There is little grey area for the readership. It is either loved or hated, but seldomly tolerated. The most notable sections of the book are ones that challenge westernized christianity and even westernized thinking as a whole. In multiple chapters such as meditation, fasting, simplicity, submission, and many others, the reader is called to examine His or Her faith from the view point of a human desperate for God rather than a christian of any modernized, consumerist culture