The disciplines

My friend Audrey came to our Quiet Day on Saturday. She taught on how to spend time with God, how to read Scripture, the Cross, the baptism of the Spirit and the gift of tongues and hearing God's voice. She became a Christian in 1954 through Billy Graham in Haringey and has been following Jesus ever since. She shared some simply belting stories of the incredible things God has done down the years. She is burning more for Jesus at 81 than probably anyone I know.

Billy Graham preached to her from John 14:6 and she encountered Jesus through repentance and faith and as she said 'why on earth hadn't my Vicar told me it's a relationship with Jesus not a religion'. The answer is he may well not have known that....

Brilliant day.

It has got me thinking anew about the spiritual disciplines. Don Whitney's talk called Pursuing a passion for God through the spiritual disciplines is a good one to get you started and will also introduce you to Edwards.

Here are some books you might also want to check out:

The Life you always wanted: This is a great book for those who don't want to plough through Richard Foster.

The Celebration of discipline: Read this while flying from Moscow to Riga on a business and trip. The danger of the disciplines is you dispense with grace so keep rooted in that as you read this.

Monk habits for everyday people: I did a placement in a Benedictine monastery for one day a week at Vicar Factory. Convinced myself I am not cut out to be a monk but the experience was not without benefit. The whole silence business has never really been my strongest card :)

The Spirit of the disciplines: Read this in the mountains of Switzerland and was much blessed.

The Great Omission: He's rather become the 'yoda' of all this stuff and has some real wisdom to share. I confess I sometimes have no idea what he's on about but that's because he's clever and I'm not.

Eat this book: Well had to add a Peterson. My mentor, friend, translator of the whole Bible, lover and encourager of pastors, wise sage, hater of consumerism in all its forms and all round good guy. This is a super little book if you have any questions at all about how the Bible came about.

Ordering your private world: This was such an important book for me. As I finished it I discovered he'd fallen off his bicycle in an unfortunate incident which convinced me helpfully that it's the gospel of grace not all the spiritual disciplines we perform that count. Also a huge relief to be honest that he wasn't utterly perfect. Nearly fell off my bicycle myself having read it but that's entirely another story. Through reading this though MacDonald became a real encouragement and far off friend to me.