{"id":5695,"date":"2019-09-18T14:27:41","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T22:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=5695"},"modified":"2019-09-18T14:27:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T22:27:43","slug":"celebration-of-discipline-concluding-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2019\/09\/18\/celebration-of-discipline-concluding-thoughts","title":{"rendered":"Celebration of Discipline: Concluding Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"220\" height=\"330\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/celebration_of_discipline_220.jpg?resize=220%2C330&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"book cover - Celebration Of Discipline\" class=\"wp-image-5484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/celebration_of_discipline_220.jpg?w=220&amp;ssl=1 220w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/celebration_of_discipline_220.jpg?resize=200%2C300&amp;ssl=1 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 85vw, 220px\"><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Blog readers: Chi Alpha @ Stanford is engaging in our annual summer reading project. As we read through an annotated translation of Pascal\u2019s Pensees called <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Christianity-Modern-Pagans-Outlined-Explained\/dp\/0898704529\/\">Christianity For Modern Pagans<\/a>, I\u2019ll post the thoughts I\u2019m emailing the students here (which will largely consist of excerpts I found insightful). They are all tagged <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/tag\/summer-reading-project-2020\">summer-reading-project-2020<\/a>. The reading schedule is <a href=\"https:\/\/xastanford.org\/summer-reading\">online<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our adventure through Celebration of Discipline the book is over. Now it\u2019s time for Celebration of Discipline the reality TV show. We\u2019ve got to live it or we wasted many hours this summer.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Foster covered twelve disciplines which are all helpful, but remember that three disciplines are&nbsp;core:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>praying to&nbsp;God<\/li><li>meditating upon Scripture<\/li><li>participating in a worshiping community<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Other disciplines are good, but these are leg day. It\u2019s tempting to skip them, but over time it will be obvious that you&nbsp;did.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So keep those front and center as you explore other spiritual disciplines. And remember why you are doing them. It\u2019s 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, \u201ctrain yourself to be godly.\u201d Peter likewise teaches that we should therefore \u201cmake every effort\u201d in our pursuit of a godly life (2 Peter 1:3\u20138). We make every effort \u2014 we train ourselves \u2014 by means of the disciplines.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nFinally, remember this phrase:  \u201ctrying without training leads to \nfrustration.\u201d  May these next few months be fruitful as you train for \ngodliness!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>P.S. Here are the results of my survey about which chapter people found most helpful: tied for first place were the chapters on <strong>prayer <\/strong>and <strong>fasting<\/strong>, honorable mention goes to the chapter on <strong>solitude <\/strong>which was only one vote shy. Other chapters received some love as well, but those three were far ahead. So if you\u2019re behind on the reading, maybe jump straight to those chapters for maximum benefit. And don\u2019t forget that I\u2019ve posted my commentary on each chapter at <a href=\"https:\/\/xastanford.org\/summer-reading\">https:\/\/xastanford.org\/summer-reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our adventure through Celebration of Discipline the book is over. Now it\u2019s time for Celebration of Discipline the reality TV show. We\u2019ve got to live it or we wasted many hours this summer.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42 Foster covered twelve disciplines which are all helpful, but remember that three disciplines are&nbsp;core: praying to&nbsp;God meditating upon Scripture participating in a \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2019\/09\/18\/celebration-of-discipline-concluding-thoughts\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cCelebration of Discipline: Concluding Thoughts\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Some concluding thoughts on Celebration of Discipline. Also, keep me in your prayers - tomorrow we begin outreach for a new school year!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[264,263],"class_list":["post-5695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources-reviews","tag-celebration-of-discipline","tag-summer-reading-project-2019"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1tR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5695"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5699,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions\/5699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}