Tag: Celebration of Discipline

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal’s Pensees called Christianity For Modern Pagans, I’ll post the thoughts I’m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer-reading-project-2020. The reading schedule is online.

Our adventure through Celebration of Discipline the book is over. Now it’s time for Celebration of Discipline the reality TV show. We’ve got to live it or we wasted many hours this summer. 🙂

Foster covered twelve disciplines which are all helpful, but remember that three disciplines are core:

• praying to God
• meditating upon Scripture
• participating in a worshiping community

Other disciplines are good, but these are leg day. It’s tempting to skip them, but over time it will be obvious that you did. 

These three are the generative disciplines, and therefore the core disciplines. They beget the others. When we pray, the Spirit may speak to us to begin a fast. When we read the Word, a verse might cause us to begin serving someone. When we gather with God’s people to worship and hear a sermon, we might feel compelled to confess a sin. If you practice these three regularly the others will come over time, but you can practice solitude and simplicity for a lifetime and never move beyond that.

So keep those front and center as you explore other spiritual disciplines. And remember why you are doing them. It’s not because they feel good (although sometimes they will). You do the disciplines because you want the outcome: godliness. In 1 Timothy 4:7b Paul says, “train yourself to be godly.” Peter likewise teaches that we should therefore “make every effort” in our pursuit of a godly life (2 Peter 1:3–8). We make every effort — we train ourselves — by means of the disciplines. 

Finally, remember this phrase: “trying without training leads to frustration.” May these next few months be fruitful as you train for godliness! 

P.S. Here are the results of my survey about which chapter people found most helpful: tied for first place were the chapters on prayer and fasting, honorable mention goes to the chapter on solitude which was only one vote shy. Other chapters received some love as well, but those three were far ahead. So if you’re behind on the reading, maybe jump straight to those chapters for maximum benefit. And don’t forget that I’ve posted my commentary on each chapter at https://xastanford.org/summer-reading

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal’s Pensees called Christianity For Modern Pagans, I’ll post the thoughts I’m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer-reading-project-2020. The reading schedule is online.

I hope this summer has been a blessing to you! Today we come to the final discipline — the discipline of celebration (which is an inversion of the book’s title, and this does not seem to be accidental). 

Celebration as Foster describes it is a joy-filled approach to daily living that we share with others. He is not primarily referring to events like worship services or parties. He has in mind things like laughing with your friends in the cafeteria or turning chores into games. When we consistently and authentically live with joy, everything (including worship services and parties) get better. But when we do not live this way, even the spiritual disciplines we have been studying can become horrible things:

Celebration is central to all the Spiritual Disciplines. Without a joyful spirit of festivity the Disciplines become dull, death-breathing tools in the hands of modern Pharisees. Every Discipline should be characterized by carefree gaiety and a sense of thanksgiving. 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 191

This is, no doubt, why Foster entitled his book Celebration of Discipline. The spiritual disciplines must themselves be both sources of joy and expressions of joy. This does not mean turn from fasting to feasting the moment we get hungry, or that when generosity is a challenge that we instead turn to greed. Of course the disciplines will be hard at times — that is why we call them disciplines! 

But if our practice of the spiritual disciplines is nothing but duty without delight, we have badly missed the mark. In this regard the spiritual disciplines are no different than the physical disciplines — exercising is hard at times but people endure it because they enjoy what comes on the other side of the pain (and exercise itself is sometimes fun). And so our spiritual disciplines must be a celebration. But since the spiritual disciplines are woven into our everyday lives, they can only be marked by celebration if our everyday lives are marked by celebration. 

Some people struggle to believe that God wants them to live this way. They have a hard time experiencing joy without guilt. Some pleasures, of course, are sinful. But there are people who are suspicious of even wholesome pleasures. If that’s you, I urge you to remember that enjoying life is not only pleasant but wise. Ecclesiastes makes this point repeatedly: “a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil” (Ecc 2:24–25), “there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live” (Ecc 3:12–13), “there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work” (Ecc 3:22), “when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil — this is a gift of God” (Ecc 5:18–20), “go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved of what you do” (Ecc 9:7–10), “you who are young be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth… banish anxiety from your heart” (Ecc 11:9–10).

Perhaps, on the other hand, you do believe this but have a hard time putting it into practice. Maybe you even feel guilty that you don’t enjoy life more. Foster has good advice:

God has established a created order full of excellent and good things, and it follows naturally that as we give our attention to those things we will be happy. That is God’s appointed way to joy. If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy. And what about our problems? When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems. The decision to set the mind on the higher things of life an act of the will. That is why celebration is a Discipline. It is not something that falls on our heads. It is the result of a consciously chosen way of thinking and living.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 195

If you struggle to live with joy, choose to fill your life with “simple good things” and thank God for them. Are you broke? Take walks in beautiful places. Watch funny videos online. Invite friends to come hang out at your place. Do you have some spare cash? Buy foods that you really enjoy eating. Buy the premium version of an app that you already like using. Purchase tickets to an event.

And always remember that the goal is to cultivate a truly joyful spirit. We’re not trying to live by hype; joy that lasts has a foundation. I appreciated Foster’s warning in this regard:

Often we try to pump up people with joy when in reality nothing has happened in their lives. God has not broken into the routine experiences of their daily existence. Celebration comes with the common ventures of life are redeemed. It is important to avoid the kind of celebrations that really celebrate nothing. Worse yet is to pretend to celebrate when the spirit of celebration is not in us. 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 193

And with that, I close. We’re officially done with the book, but I’ll send one more summary email next week. Thanks for reading along! 

In the meanwhile, I have a question for you: which chapter did you find most helpful? Reply and let me know — I’ll share the results anonymously with everyone! 

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal’s Pensees called Christianity For Modern Pagans, I’ll post the thoughts I’m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer-reading-project-2020. The reading schedule is online.

This chapter has three emphases: Foster talks about communities of believers seeking the will of God together (should our congregation buy this building or not?), he talks about individuals turning to the gathered body for advice (like that couple who asked the congregation to assess their readiness for marriage), and he talks about individuals turning to other individuals for spiritual counsel (seeing a spiritual director).

I’m just going to talk about the first one — when an entire group (such as a life group or a worship team) seeks the will of God together. When a group like that needs to make a decision we almost always do one of two things: we vote or we just leave everything up to the leader. There are times when each of those is appropriate (for example, when it is a routine decision), but there are also times when this is an inferior solution (for example, when passions are high and a wrong decision can destroy the entire community). 

Foster describes an alternative:

“As a people they had decided to live under the direct rulership of the Spirit. They had rejected both human totalitarianism and anarchy. They had even rejected democracy, that is, majority rule. They had dared to live on the basis of Spirit-rule; no fifty-one percent vote, no compromises, but Spirit-directed unity.” 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Disciple, pages 178–179

And then a little later:

“[these groups] all operate on the basis on Spirit-directed unity. Issues are approached with an assurance that the mind of the Spirit can be known. They gather in Christ’s name, believing that his will will be fleshed out in their midst. They do not seek compromise, but God-given consensus.” 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 184

In other words, there are times when we realize that our community needs wisdom beyond human wisdom and that the issue is so important that we cannot leave it to one leader to seek the face of God for it. We must all do it together.

When we do that, Foster suggests, we must expect unity. I know several church leadership teams that follow this practice: if there is no unity then the team does not proceed. This means that even one voice can derail a plan that everyone else is in favor of. Whenever I’ve spoken to people about this practice, they can point to specific times one person vetoed a decision that enjoyed overwhelming support. At the time the rest of the team had been mildly to intensely annoyed, but it later became apparent that their friend’s refusal to express false consensus had saved the team much grief. In retrospect the entire team saw that God had protected them through the integrity of their friend and the integrity of their process. 

Again, this should not be the way we usually make collective decisions. If a large community always does this they will inevitably find themselves held hostage by unstable people. Or if a church routinely does this they will find themselves in thrall to a handful of unbelievers who attend the church. And so for simple matters touching on everyone, take a quick vote. For decisions requiring an awareness of background knowledge or perhaps some special expertise, defer to the leaders. 

But if doing this for every decision would be unwise, I would like to suggest that never doing it would be even less wise. 

The next time you are part of a Christian group facing a significant decision, consider proposing this idea — “Let’s pray until we have unity on this issue and then do whatever God tells us.” 

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal’s Pensees called Christianity For Modern Pagans, I’ll post the thoughts I’m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer-reading-project-2020. The reading schedule is online.

This week we’re talking about confessing our sins to other people. Biblically, we always confess our sins to the Lord in prayer and then we usually also confess directly to those we have wronged. Sometimes in addition we confess our sins to other believers for the sake of their or our spiritual health. As an example of confessing for the sake of someone else’s spiritual health, I might confess a sin while preaching about how growth comes in a certain area. As an example of confessing for my own spiritual health, I might confess a sin to a friend while requesting their counsel. 

“Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another in live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.”

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p 145 9

A few thoughts about confession:

• Foster’s advice is spot-on when he says, “…we must be prepared to deal with definite sins. A generalized confession may save us from humiliation and shame, but it will not ignite inner healing” (page 151). This related quote has often run through my mind, “We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones” (Rochefoucauld). If we confess in a way that makes us look good, there’s something amiss. When you confess, don’t merely confess that you are not perfect. Draw attention to one or more of your particular imperfections. Not simply “I can be greedy sometimes”; rather, “I have been so consumed with desiring that new iPhone that I almost stole money from my mom’s purse. I was shocked at my level of greed.”
• I said we usually confess to the person we have wronged. That is not always the case, however. For example, if you’ve been staring lustfully at someone, it’s generally unwise to tell that to the person you’ve been lusting after. You are relieving your emotions by burdening theirs. It’s selfish. 
• To whom do you confess when you are not confessing directly to someone you have wronged? Foster’s counsel is wise: “The key qualifications are spiritual maturity, wisdom, compassion, good common sense, the ability to keep a confidence, and a wholesome sense of humor” (page 153). 
• In university ministry I sometimes observe two extremes: a community where no one confesses anything to anyone else (usually because of fear) or a community whose worship services sometimes become public confession ceremonies. I have thoughts about both:
  • A community where no one confesses anything to anyone else is held in bondage to sin. People convince themselves they struggle alone, and as result half of Satan’s work is done for him. He desires to isolate Christians as a prelude to destroying us, and yet we foolishly isolate ourselves.
  • A community where people regularly confess their sins in a public forum runs the risk of indirectly elevating sin. If you’ve never seen this done it is hard to describe, but I have seen it several times. Someone heads to the microphone and asks if they can share something that they feel like they have to get off their chest. And then they confess a sin. And then someone else wrestling with that same sin or a related sin makes a beeline for the microphone after this. And then the dam breaks and it takes over the entire service. This is sometimes a genuine response to the guiding of the Holy Spirit (we see an example of this in Acts 19:18–19), but sometimes it is an indicator that healthy interpersonal confession is not happening and so this substitute is emerging as a replacement. The dangers are (a) it can make sin seem more pervasive than it is (5% of the people spending 95% of the time talking about their biggest mistakes creates a distorted impression of the community), and (b) without wise pastoral leadership the normal emotions that accompany public confession can be mistaken for the working of the Holy Spirit. 
  • That’s in a worship service. It’s usually a healthy thing when this happens in a small group (although here, too, it can sometimes normalize sin and minimize the transforming power of grace). 

Here is my suggestion to you: today or tomorrow examine your conscience and identify a specific sin to confess. Meditate upon the sin until you clearly see its wrongness. Then this week find a fellow believer (perhaps in Chi Alpha, perhaps in your church) and confess the sin to them. Then ask them to pray for you that God will liberate you from the power of that sin. See what happens and iterate moving forward. 

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, I’ll post my thoughts here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer‐reading‐project‐2019. The schedule is online.

This week we come to the discipline of service — the habit of “quietly and unpretentiously… caring for the needs of others.” (page 130).

This is a solid chapter and full of insights. 

“Of all the classical Spiritual Disciplines, service is the most conducive to the growth of humility. When we set out on a consciously chosen course of action that accents the good of others and is, for the most part, a hidden work, a deep change occurs in our spirits.” 

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 130

As I sometimes remark, “God’s plan A for your life is humility. Plan B is humiliation. Choose wisely.” Pursuing humility through service is countercultural at an ambitious place like Stanford, and so we need to constantly remind ourselves of the model of our Lord. Jesus showed us that leaders are examples and not exceptions. A position of leadership does not exempt us from service — it gives us an opportunity to serve more people. 

How can we tell if we are using a position as a platform for service? Robert Greenleaf, who was an executive at AT&T, wrote 

“The best test [of your servant leadership], and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

Robert Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader

The passage I found most helpful, though, is Foster’s insight on the difference between serving and being a servant:

“When we choose to serve, we are still in charge. We decide whom we will serve and when we will serve. And if we are in charge, we will worry a great deal about anyone stepping on us, that is, taking charge over us. But when we choose to be a servant, we give up the right to be in charge. There is great freedom in this. If we voluntarily choose to be taken advantage of, then we cannot be manipulated. When we choose to be a servant, we surrender the right to decide who and when we will serve. We become available and vulnerable.”

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 132

Years ago someone told me that one of the truest tests of your servanthood is how you react when you are treated like a servant. It stuck with me, probably because I had recently felt the sting of being taken for granted. I had been treated like a servant and it bothered me, which meant that I did not yet see myself as a servant. In Philippians 2:7 we are taught that Jesus took “the very nature of a servant” (NIV). I came to see that if my goal was to have the very nature of a servant, then being treated like a servant was actually a marker of success. 

What prevents this from becoming destructive is recognizing that although we are servants we are not serving the whims of people. Colossians 3:23–24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” He gets at the same idea in 2 Corinthians 4:5, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ”

In other words, our ultimate service is to the Lord. This limits the way we serve any specific person. I must not serve others in a way that undermines my ability to fulfill God’s purposes in my life.

• I will help you move but not on my son’s birthday. I owe service to you but I also owe service to my son, and I owe him greater priority in service than I do to you. God has made me my son’s father and so my obligations in that regard will sometimes trump my obligations to serve you. 
• You don’t need to give your friend a ride to the airport when you are supposed to be taking an exam. Christ brought you to Stanford and you need to honor that part of His call upon your life.
• And seeing yourself as servant doesn’t imply that you should only apply for minimum wage service jobs. If God is calling you to become a professor or an entrepreneur or a doctor or whatever, pursue that wholeheartedly and do what you need to do to prepare for that — and serve people at every step along the way.

Applying this principle requires wisdom, because if you are sufficiently clever you can justify forgoing almost any act of service or expression of humility. That’s really the clue, though. If you’re constantly seeking a way to avoid serving then you don’t have the heart of a servant, so stop rationalizing and start serving. If your heart, however, does not first say “must I?” but “can I?” when you see an opportunity to serve, then you are in little danger of using this principle to indulge your selfishness.

Next week we come to the corporate disciplines — the way that we live life together in the Kingdom.

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, I’ll post my thoughts here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer‐reading‐project‐2019. The schedule is online.

I’m doubling up this week because I missed last week’s summary due to my travels. With this update we should be back on track.

This week, we examine the discipline of submission, which entails the rejection of the lust for power and even the presumption of autonomy.

“Submission is an ethical theme that runs the gamut of the New Testament. It is a posture obligatory upon all Christians: men as well as women, fathers as well as children, masters as well as slaves. We are commanded to live a life of submission because Jesus lived a life of submission, not because we are in a particular place or station in life. Self-denial is a posture fitting for all those who follow the crucified Lord…. the one and only compelling reason for submission is the example of Jesus.”

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline page 117

Our culture celebrates the autonomous individual, and concepts such as “self-actualization” and “self-fulfillment” are pervasive. Our society’s main attitude toward the self is to indulge it, but Scripture’s main attitude toward the self is to deny it. The habit of submission denies self in a powerful way, and so two of the main opportunities we have to deny self are to submit to God and to submit to legitimate human authorities. 

Submitting ourselves to God means obeying His Word, especially when we are puzzled by His commands. There is a very real sense in which we are not submitting until we disagree (or at least don’t understand). When we do what God says because it makes sense to us, it is not God we are obeying but ourselves. Meditating on Romans 12 might prove helpful as you think about this.

Submitting ourselves to legitimate human authorities means that we honor governmental leaders even when we disagree with them. Disagreeing with our political leaders is not uncommon; in fact, I cannot imagine a California voter who is simultaneously thrilled with both governor Gavin Newsome and president Donald Trump. Nonetheless, we honor and pray for both. Not only do we honor and pray for them, we also obey them when they are acting within their sphere of authority. Likewise, we honor spiritual authorities such as pastors and obey them when they are acting within their sphere of authority. We also honor our parents and obey them when they are acting within their sphere of authority.

I keep repeating “when they are acting within their sphere of authority” because keeping that in mind is what protects us from abusive and toxic situations. Every human authority has limits placed upon them, and when they step outside of their realm they should not be obeyed. Tyrannical governments, cultish religions, controlling workplaces, toxic family systems — wise Christians flee from or stand against these things. 

Spend time thinking Biblically about the proper spheres of human authority — it will bear great fruit in your life. Sometimes, like in Acts 5:27–29, the point is made very clear — the government has no right to forbid you to obey God (I’m looking at you, China). But other times the lesson is an implication of the text rather than its main point. For example, Acts 5:3–4 presupposes that Peter would have had no right to command Ananais to sell his property or to give all of the proceeds to the church. That illustrates an important limit on spiritual authority. These are just two examples from one chapter of Scripture — I encourage you to keep the concept of spheres of authority in the back of your mind as you read Scripture. You’ll find insights in unexpected places.

Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, I’ll post my thoughts here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged summer‐reading‐project‐2019. The schedule is online.

In this chapter, Foster invites us to the spiritual discipline of solitude: periods of physical isolation which make us into people who are content regardless of the judgments of others. It is closely related to remaining silent.

“One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust. The tongue is our most powerful weapon of manipulation. A frantic stream of words flows from us because we are in a constant process of adjusting our public image. We fear so deeply what we think other people see in us that we talk in order to straighten out their understanding.”

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pages 100–101

There are related comments in the chapter on study:

“If we will observe the relationships that go on between human beings, we will receive a graduate-level education. Watch, for example, how much of our speech is aimed at justifying our actions. We find it almost impossible to act and allow the act to speak for itself. No, we must explain it, justify it, demonstrate the rightness of it. Why do we feel this compulsion to set the record straight? Because of pride and fear, because our reputations are at stake!”

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, page 74

When I was in college someone asked what percentage of my words were devoted to influencing how others thought about me. The question gripped me, and so I tried to keep track for a few days. Every time I said something I asked myself whether or not I had said it mostly to make other people think better of me. The results were shocking — it was a HUGE percentage of my conversations. I resolved to strike anything from my speech whose primary purpose was either to impress others or to correct a possible misinterpretation of my motives. 

In retrospect, I often went too far and made things awkward for everyone else. Pursuing solitude and silence is not an excuse for being rude. We are commanded to love God and people, so if your spiritual practices make you act in less loving ways then you’re doing them wrong. You will likely make mistakes as you experiment in this area. Don’t beat yourself up over them, just apologize and recalibrate as necessary. If you resolve not to speak for a day and someone asks you for directions, give them anyway. If you decide to spend the next Saturday in solitude and an elderly neighbor asks you to help them move some stuff, reschedule your solitude. If you want to avoid justifying yourself but someone asks you a point-blank question about your motives, answer honestly and simply. 

Also, don’t make your plans in this area vows to the Lord. Vows to God are potent things and should be made rarely, yet I often speak with students who have made a promise to God to do (or not do) something. In almost all cases the vow was an unnecessary add-on meant to give their plan more oomph, and now they are in danger of breaking a vow to God. If you are considering making a vow, first meditate on Ecclesiastes 5:4–6, Deuteronomy 23:21–23, Matthew 5:33–37, and James 5:12.

My personal practice of solitude currently looks like this. When I wake in the morning I come downstairs and put my phone where I cannot easily get to it. I prepare my breakfast and begin reading a spiritually beneficial book. After a bit (usually a few chapters), I boot up my laptop, open a word processor, and write something that will be helpful to others. I don’t check my email or any social media while I’m doing this. Once I’ve written enough, I retrieve my phone to check for any text messages that may have come in overnight and also open my browser to check my email.

My habit is similar to the thirty-minute abstention from technology Foster describes in the preface. His prescription reminds me of an old-school saying: “No Bible, no breakfast.” In other words, we must remember to nourish our spiritual life before we nourish our physical life. Perhaps a modern parallel is “No Spirit, no screens.” Don’t check your email until you’ve checked in with God. Leave your text messages unread until you’ve read the Word. This is not an absolute rule, for there are seasons of life when it might be unwise or even wicked to cut yourself off from communication. Are you a surgeon on call? Turn your ringer up to max volume!

If you do engage in a daily practice of solitude you will eventually find yourself wanting something more. Remember that you can always drive over to Fasting Prayer Mountain of the World for a personal day-long (or even overnight) retreat. More info at https://www.fpmw-sv.com/about-us