Richard J. Foster

Fifty-two readings on living in intentional Christian community to spark group discussion.Gold Medal Winner, 2017 Illumination Book Awards, Christian LivingSilver Medal Winner, 2017 Benjamin Franklin Award in Religion, Independent Book Publishers AssociationWhy, in an age of connectivity, are our lives more isolated and fragmented than ever? And what can be done about it? The answer lies in the hands of God’s people. Increasingly, today’s Christians want to be the church, to follow Christ together in daily life. From every corner of society, they are daring to step away from the status quo and respond to Christ’s call to share their lives more fully with one another and with others. As they take the plunge, they are discovering the rich, meaningful life that Jesus has in mind for all people, and pointing the church back to its original calling: to be a gathered, united community that demonstrates the transforming love of God.Of course, such a life together with others isn’t easy. The selections in this volume are, by and large, written by practitioners—people who have pioneered life in intentional community and have discovered in the nitty-gritty of daily life what it takes to establish, nurture, and sustain a Christian community over the long haul.Whether you have just begun thinking about communal living, are already embarking on sharing life with others, or have been part of a community for many years, the pieces in this collection will encourage, challenge, and strengthen you. The book’s fifty-two chapters can be read one a week to ignite meaningful group discussion.Contributors include: John F. Alexander, Eberhard Arnold, J. Heinrich Arnold, Johann Christoph Arnold, Alden Bass, Benedict of Nursia, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Leonardo Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Joan Chittister, Stephen B. Clark, Andy Crouch, Dorothy Day, Anthony de Mello, Elizabeth Dede, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jenny Duckworth, Friedrich Foerster, Richard J. Foster, Jodi Garbison, Arthur G. Gish, Helmut Gollwitzer, Adele J Gonzalez, Stanley Hauerwas, Joseph H. Hellerman, Roy Hession, David Janzen, Rufus Jones, Emmanuel Katongole, Arthur Katz, Søren Kierkegaard, C. Norman Kraus, C.S. Lewis, Gerhard Lohfink, Ed Loring, Chiara Lubich, George MacDonald, Thomas Merton, Hal Miller, José P. Miranda, Jürgen Moltmann, Charles E. Moore, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Elizabeth O’Connor, John M. Perkins, Eugene H.Peterson, Christine D. Pohl, Chris Rice, Basilea Schlink, Howard A. Snyder, Mother Teresa, Thomas à Kempis, Elton Trueblood, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

This beginning workbook for Spiritual Formation Groups features guidelines for starting a group, study plans for the first nine sessions, and a questionnaire that helps map the way ahead. Based upon six major dimensions of the spiritual life found in the life of Christ and Christian tradition: The Contemplative Tradition - The Holiness Tradition - The Charismatic Tradition - The Social Justice Tradition - The Evangelical Tradition - and The Incarnational Tradition, this workbook program provides all the necessary ingredients to start and maintain a Spiritual Formation Group. Successfully used by thousands of Spiritual Formation Group participants, A Spiritual Formation Workbook has been completely revised to correlate with Richard J. Foster's Streams of Living Water. Its new and updated exercises and teachings offer fresh perspectives on Christian faith and practice. Christian in perspective and ecumenical in breadth, RENOVAR (from the Latin, meaning "to renew") is an effort committed to the renewal of the Church. Founded by bestselling writer Richard J. Foster, RENOVAR provides individual churches with a balanced, practical, effective small-group strategy for spiritual growth.

For those who want to develop a deeper, more joyful inner life through the practice of Christian spiritual disciplines, this one-year journal-workbook helps readers find new ways to reflect on, experience, and integrate the disciplines into their lives.

Mark Spitz is arguably the most famous and successful Olympic athlete of all time because of his legendary performances at the 1972 Olympics, where he won seven gold medals while breaking seven world records. His amazing life story is told for the first time in the authorized biography Mark Spitz: The Extraordinary Life of an Olympic Champion.This exclusive account follows Spitz’s roller-coaster career: age-group prodigy, four-medal "flop" at the 1968 Olympics, outstanding collegiate career at Indiana University, gold-medal haul in 1972, lucrative endorsements, and a brief and unsuccessful stint in entertainment.And the meatier stories?the role his father played in his career, his often stormy relationship with coaches and teammates, his experiences as a Jewish athlete with anti-Semitism and the Munich massacre, his impact on the commercialization of swimming, his relationship with Michael Phelps, and others?have been largely unknown, ignored, barely touched upon, or distorted.Mark Spitz: The Extraordinary Life of an Olympic Champion provides insights into Spitz’s career, behind-the-scenes anecdotes about him and his competitors, and untold stories that shed light on his complicated personality and relationship with his father. Old and new fans alike will appreciate the depth and details of this swimming icon’s story.

ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist; Foreword INDIES Book of the Year FinalistEveryone who met Dallas Willard was impressed by his personal attention, calm confidence, wisdom, and profound sense of the spiritual. But he was not always the man who seemed to live on a different plane of reality than the rest of us.Dallas absorbed some of the harshest and most unfair blows life can land. His mother died when he was two, and after his father remarried, he was exiled from his stepmother's home. Growing up in Depression-era, rural Missouri and educated in a one-room schoolhouse, he knew poverty, deprivation, anxiety, self-doubt, and depression. Though the pews he sat in during his early years didn't offer much by way of love and mercy, Dallas, instead of turning away, kept looking for the company of a living, present, and personal God.In Gary W. Moon's candid and inspiring biography, we see how Dallas's love of learning took him to Baylor University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Southern California, where he became a beloved professor and one of the most versatile members of the philosophy department as well as a personal mentor to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers.

Jos kaipaat syvempää ja merkityksellisempää elämää, tämä kirja on sinua varten.Tämä ajaton klassikko on auttanut yli miljoonaa ihmistä löytämään rikkaamman hengellisen elämän, joka on täynnä iloa, rauhaa ja syvempää Jumalan tahdon ymmärtämistä. Teos avaa mielenkiintoisia näköaloja hiljentymisestä, rukouksesta, paastosta ja Raamatun tutkimisesta. Samalla se haastaa aikamme ihmisiä terveeseen elämän yksinkertaistamiseen, yksinäisyydessä tapahtuviin sisäisiin löytöihin, pyyteettömään palvelemiseen, Jumalan palvontaan ja aitoon riemuun.Richard J. Foster on arvostettu kristitty kirjailija, opettaja, pastori ja teologian tohtori. Hän on perustanut kristillisen Renovaré Instituutin, jonka tavoitteena on auttaa ihmisiä tulemaan enemmän Jeesuksen kaltaisiksi, sekä puhunut ympäri maailmaa hengellisen kasvun aiheista. Hänellä ja hänen vaimollaan Carolynilla on kaksi aikuista lasta ja yhdeksän lastenlasta, ja he asuvat lähellä Denveriä, Coloradossa.

In a society where raging narcissism dominates the moral landscape, the virtue of humility is often dismissed as irrelevant. Not only is humility vanishing from contemporary culture, but we are also witnessing how destructive a lack of humility has become among our churches and ministry leaders. And yet, Richard Foster, the founder of Renovaré, insists that humility is central to the journey toward character formation and spiritual transformation. For this reason he decided to spend a year studying the virtue of humility. Using the Lakota calendar as a framework, Foster provides us with a look into the insights he gathered from sources ranging from Native American culture to Julian of Norwich to Scripture to personal friends. By engaging with both the spiritual classics and Foster's own experiences, Learning Humility provides profound insight into what humility can look like in our current cultural climate. Join Richard Foster on the journey toward a life of humility, which he says leads us into "freedom, joy, and holy hilarity."

ECPA 2019 Christian Book Award Finalist 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalists - Biography Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. His presence and ideas rippled through the lives of many prominent leaders and authors, such as John Ortberg, Richard Foster, James Bryan Smith, Paula Huston, and J. P. Moreland. As a result of these relationships and the books he wrote, he fundamentally altered the way tens of thousands of Christians have understood and experienced the spiritual life. Whether great or small, everyone who met Dallas was impressed by his personal attention, his calm confidence, his wisdom, and his profound sense of the spiritual. But he was not always the man who lived on a different plane of reality than so many of the rest of us. He was someone who had to learn to be a husband, a parent, a teacher, a Christ follower. The journey was not an easy one. He absorbed some of the harshest and most unfair blows life can land. His mother died when he was two, and after his father remarried he was exiled from his stepmother’s home. Growing up in Depression-era, rural Missouri and educated in a one-room schoolhouse, he knew poverty, deprivation, anxiety, self-doubt, and depression. Though the pews he sat in during his early years were not offering much by way of love and mercy, Dallas, instead of turning away, kept looking for the company of a living, present, and personal God. In Gary W. Moon’s candid and inspiring biography, we read how Willard became the person who mentored and partnered with his young pastor, Richard Foster, to inspire some of the most influential books on spirituality of the last generation. We see how his love of learning took him on to Baylor, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Southern California, where he became a beloved professor and one of the most versatile members of the philosophy department. The life of Dallas Willard deserves attention because he became a person who himself experienced authentic transformation of life and character. Dallas Willard not only taught about spiritual disciplines, he became a different person because of them. He became a grounded person, a spiritually alive person as he put them into practice, finding God, as he often said, "at the end of his rope." Here is a life that gives us all hope.

Chinese Sensei Chongkun, owner of a Dojo in Hong Kong. His parting words to his pupil Thomas Logan-Savage. 'If ever a situation arises where you can do nothing, do nothing. Relax your body and allow your strength to build. Keep your mind alert for that split second when opportunity presents itself. You will know when it is time to act. That is the time to use the skills I have taught you. You are no longer just a man. Now you are a weapon.' 'You've been killing people again, Tom, haven't you' So says Charlotte, Thomas's sister and only surviving family. When terrorists invade her home at gunpoint, they have no idea what they are about to unleash. Thomas Logan-Savage is an ex-MI5 officer. Highly skilled with firearms and knives, he is an expert in many forms of martial art and a ruthless killer if his life - or that of any of the people he cares about - is threatened. Thomas Logan-Savage is an enigma; he is THE LONER.

Caribbean Love Affair Prologue In the early part of the eighteenth century, two ships sailed the waters of the Caribbean. The first, an English merchant ship, left Kingston Jamaica, fully laden and bound for her home port in England. On this voyage she carried two passengers. The first, Eleanor Simpson Forbes, seventeen years old, blonde haired, medium height, slender and beautiful, was an only child. Her father was Sir Benjamin Simpson Forbes, aide to Sir Francis Black, governor of Jamaica. Her mother was Lady Caroline Simpson Forbes, a stunningly beautiful English rose. The second passenger, Margaret Stewart, born of good Scottish stock, joined the Forbes' as governess to Eleanor. She is travelling with her charge in her new position as companion.The second ship, a French first order frigate, now in the hands of a murderous horde of escaped prisoners, led by a cold blooded half caste called Paul Duval, is engaged in acts of piracy. On board the pirate vessel is a young English sailor, Peter Bennet, an unwilling member of the crew, released from prison when Duval led the daring escape and subsequent capture of the frigate. Just turned eighteen, tall, strong, with dark brown hair, and a ruddy complexion, Bennet has no choice but to accept the situation. Will fate bring these two vessels together? If it does, what does the future hold for all on board each vessel?

From Jordan to Germany, the influx of refugees is straining goodwill to the breaking point. This issue of Plough Quarterly focuses on the second half of Jesus’ Great Commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. We found love of neighbor demonstrated by Christians and Muslims in ISIS-controlled Syria, and by volunteers who continue to welcome refugees despite growing public hostility. Here in election-year America, how do we as citizens live out love of neighbor in relation to immigrants? To the unborn threatened by abortion, and to their mothers? To prisoners, especially those held in solitary confinement for unconscionable terms and those on death row? To the victims of crime, and to the law enforcement officers charged with keeping the peace? To our youth, who are the ones most gravely harmed by our culture’s gender confusion? On all these fronts and many others, love of neighbor makes claims on us. But shouldn’t it start within the fellowship of believers, the church? When this happens, we can bear one another’s burdens – for example, those of the soldier returning from war, or the coworker battling an addiction. Perspectives from Navid Kermani, Neil Shigley, Denise Uwimana, Gerhard Lohfink, Michael Yandell, Teresa of Ávila, C.S. Lewis, John Stott, Matthew Loftus, Nathaniel Peters, Eberhard Arnold, Richard J. Foster, and Annemarie Wächter are sure to stimulate reflection and discussion. Then there’s new poetry by Laurie Klein, book reviews, a children’s story by Laura E. Richards, and world-class art by Dean Mitchell, Aristarkh Lentulov, Alex Vogel, Michael D. Fay, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Marc Chagall, Vasilij Ivanovic Surikov, and Sekino Jun’ichiro. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Why has God not answered my prayers? What should I be praying for? If everything I prayed for came true, would I be ready? In this spiritual classic, Eberhard Arnold mines the riches of biblical teaching on prayer and the example of Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and the early Christians to point us back to the prayer that pleases God most – prayer that has the power to transform our lives and our world. In a new reflective response, much-loved author Richard J. Foster relates Arnold’s words to our contemporary reality.

2010 Christianity Today Book Award winner2010 Golden Canon Leadership Book Award winnerThink of the moment you last experienced God.Do you know him that closely in this moment?Truly experiencing the love of God gives us a taste of his goodness and his love for us, but often those moments are fleeting. We get distracted by life. Our awareness and understanding fade while our longing to experience him that way again increases.In these pages you can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. Spiritual formation is the process through which one's inner self is opened to the work of the Holy Spirit, who forms us into the image of the Son. Here Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, both experienced leaders in spiritual formation, introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply. Each person helps you to grasp one of the seven primary paths to intimacy with God that have been developed throughout Christian history. Chapters are divided into sections, each segment surrounding a key figure and concluding with a reflection and prayer.This rich resource can guide you into the same deep intimacy with God, opening you to the Spirit's work of transformation. A Renovar Resource.

Readers' Choice Awards Honorable Mention Distinguished Honorable Mention, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore "No matter how old you are or how many degrees you have or don't have—when grace takes you to school, you start in kindergarten." This was the experience of Reverend Glandion Carney when he was given the life-altering news that he has Parkinson's disease. He was plunged into denial and despair. This was not supposed to be his journey. How could he face it? With poignant vulnerability, The Way of Grace describes one man's journey into a new land of God's amazing grace. Both his honesty and his resilience will inspire and inform your own times of difficulty. In each chapter we are introduced to a spiritual practice that can carry us through difficult days: acceptance, relinquishment, community, simplicity and more. And a guide at the end of each chapter carries us into a brief and refreshing experience with each of the practices. God's unmerited grace saves us, strengthens us and sanctifies us. We too can experience lives full of grace and truth, courageously searching out God's wonders every day.

Att läsa Bibeln till andlig förvandling Vi söker ofta efter specifika texter när vi läser Bibeln. Vi kommer gång på gång till Bibeln med ett behov – Gud måste tala. Tänk om vi i stället skulle låta Ordet förändra oss på djupet och låta Gud använda den rika källa som bibeltexten är för att ge oss tilltal. Liv med Gud är en oumbärlig guide när det handlar om att närma sig Bibeln med sikte på andlig och personlig förvandling. Här visar Richard Foster att det är stor skillnad mellan att läsa Bibeln för att lära sig om biblisk historia eller bara få andliga instruktioner och att läsa Bibeln till andlig förvandling. Bibeln utmanar dig helt enkelt att leva ett liv med Gud. Richard Foster är en teolog och författare vars författarskap har nått en bred kristen publik. Med ursprung inom kväkarrörelsen har han innehaft en professur vid Friends University och verkat som pastor inom Evangelical Friends. Hans mest lästa bok Celebration of Discipline finns tidigare utgiven på svenska under titeln Vägar till glädje. Foster är även grundare av Renovaré, en rörelse för andlig förnyelse. Han bor i Denver, Colorado i USA.

The Bible has the astounding power to transform lives. The stories of people like Francis of Assisi, Antony of Egypt, Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. vividly demonstrate this. Why aren't more of us transformed by Scripture today? Too often we study biblical texts without believing that God truly inhabits this book. Scripture seeks to capture our minds, not merely educate them. In these pages Chris Webb explains that we can transform our Christian life by reading as lovers rather than as theorists. This is possible by coming to the text prayerfully, expectantly, in humility and empty-handed. When we open the Bible, it does not say to us, "Listen: God is there!" Instead, the voice of the Spirit whispers through each line, "Look: I am here." Reading the Bible this way can reconfigure the habits of your heart, refresh your imagination and memory, reshape and redeem your emotions, realign your reality individually and communally for kingdom life, and take us beyond the Bible into a renewed way of life. Here is the work of today--which is also the work of the whole of life--to open your heart afresh to the living Word of God.