Amazon reader review: When Richard Foster began writing Celebration of Discipline more than 20 years ago, an older writer gave him a bit of advice: "Be sure that every chapter forces the reader into the next chapter." Foster took the advice to heart; as a result, his book presents one of the most compelling and readable visions of Christian spirituality published in the past few decades. After beginning with a simple observation--"Superficiality is the curse of our age.... The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people"--Foster's book moves to explain the disciplines people must cultivate in order to achieve spiritual depth. In succinct, urgent, and sometimes humorous chapters, Foster defines a broad range of classic spiritual disciplines in terms that are lucid without being too limiting and offers advice that's practical without being overly prescriptive. For instance, after describing meditation as a combination of "intense intimacy and awful reverence," he settles into such down-to-earth topics as how to choose a place and a posture in which to meditate. Perhaps most interesting and useful is Foster's chapter on the controversial Christian discipline of submission. According to Foster, submission does not demand self-hatred or loss of identity. Instead, it simply means growing secure in the conviction that "our happiness is not dependent on getting what we want" but on the fulfillment that naturally flows from love of one's neighbors. Such wise and encouraging suggestions have helped many readers to discard the idea that discipline is an onerous duty and to move toward a liberating and simpler idea of discipline--whose defining character, as Foster never forgets, is joy.

Amazon reader review: Written in the same warm, accessible style as Richard Foster's best-selling Celebration of Discipline, Freedom of Simplicity articulates a creative, more human style of living and points the way for Christians to make their lives "models of simplicity." Foster provides a way to rethink our priorities and to "seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness." He shows us how to live in harmony with the rich complexity of life while stressing the relation of simplicity to prayer, solitude, and all the Christian Disciplines.

Streams of Living Water is Richard J. Foster's roundup of six great traditions of Christian spiritual practice. His essays on spirituality--contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice, evangelical, and incarnational--are grounded in straightforward profiles of biblical and modern characters whom Foster considers exemplars of these traditions. (The prophet Amos and the Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, for example, are featured in the chapter on social justice.) Each chapter ends with a bit of advice about how readers can cultivate new aspects of spiritual life and keep these Christian traditions alive: "Take a bath instead of a shower. Waste time for God," Foster writes, in his chapter on the contemplative tradition. Foster doesn't really break new ground in Streams of Living Water--he's written about most of these spiritual disciplines elsewhere--but this book is a useful and engaging introduction to a fairly broad range of Christian spiritual practices.