I thought I might use a bit of blog space here to list just a few of the books that I believe would be helpful reading for Christians interested in learning more about spiritual formation in general and spiritual disciplines in particular. More significantly, these books supply information that can be of assistance in applying spiritual disciplines to your life. After all, reading a menu does little to satisfy your hunger; you have to grab a fork and get to it. It is the same with the disciplines. Eventually, you have to put down the book and get to work.
The following books are works that I would highly recommend:
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald S. Whitney
Celebration of Discipline – Richard Foster
The Discipline of Grace – Jerry Bridges
Lost Virtue of Happiness – J.P. Moreland and Klaus Issler
The Life You’ve Always Wanted – John Ortberg
The Disciplines of Grace – T.M. Moore
When the Soul Listens – Jan Johnson
The Deeper Journey – Robert Mulholland
Invitation to a Journey – Robert Mulholland
A Search For What Is Real – Brian McLaren
A Search For What Makes Sense – Brian McLaren
A Testament of Devotion – Thomas Kelly
Becoming a Healthy Disciple – Stephen A. Macchia
Hearing God – Dallas Willard
Renovation of the Heart – Dallas Willard
The Spirit of the Disciplines – Dallas Willard
The Great Omission – Dallas Willard
Drawing Closer – Glen Martin and Dian Ginter
Disciplines of the Holy Spirit – Siang Yang Tan
The above is far from an exhaustive list and the plethora of works on spiritual formation is growing daily. I believe any of these books would be good, no matter what your goal in spiritual formation is. After I developed this initial list, a good friend asked me what my favorite book on the list was. I responded I didn’t think this was a fair question. The reason I said this is that I believe certain books mean more at one point in time in our faith journey than at other times. Any book on this list has meant something to me at one time or the other. My friend however, kept pressing.
She asked if I had to recommend a good book from the list to begin with, which would I choose? Well, the one I started with was Foster’s book, mainly because it was the only book on the block back in the late ’70’s. This is a different day and time, I responded. Now there are more available….
“Quit stalling and tell me which one to start with,” she grabbed my arm and started twisting.
“Macchia,” I screamed. “Go out and get Macchia’s book.”
Posted by Running Through God’s Creation « Faith and Fitness - Let’s Grow! on April 8, 2008 at 9:49 pm
[...] you spent time with the Creator today? Here is a great list of books on Spiritual Formation. He not only created the universe, but he also made you in His image (Genesis 1-2). Are you [...]
Posted by Josh on April 8, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Good time. And ,
Posted by How to Get Six Pack Fast on April 15, 2009 at 3:43 pm
My fellow on Facebook shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed that I came here.