Content - Christian Living Category

Technology and the Church

Fri, 22 May 2026 18:29:00 GMT

40% Off Select Books for Christians Navigating a Digital World

Technology is reshaping every corner of life, including the church and our individual spiritual lives. Whether you're wrestling with screen time and spiritual formation, thinking through AI and what it means to be human, or trying to lead a congregation through constant digital change, Christians today need wisdom to navigate these rapid changes.

These books bring together a diversity of viewpoints from some of the most thoughtful Christian voices engaging technology today, offering biblical grounding, practical guidance, and honest wrestling with hard questions. Keep reading to find resources that will equip you to engage technology faithfully as a Christian.

Soul-Nourishing Reads for Christian Moms

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:29:00 GMT

We all long for something that speaks to the heart, offering a quiet moment of peace and reflection amid the demands of each day. Perhaps you're a mom seeking inspiration for your own faith journey, or maybe you're searching for a meaningful gift for a mom in your life. Whether you are celebrating a birthday, a holiday, honoring Mother's Day, or simply wanting to encourage someone through a challenging season, these thoughtful books can be a lasting gesture of love.

Featuring devotionals, insightful Bible studies, poetry, and engaging novels, this collection of Christian books provides a compassionate space for mothers to breathe. Each selection is uplifting, deeply encouraging, and thoughtfully designed to help the women you love rest, reflect, and draw closer to God on any occasion.

Presence and Play

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 21:24:00 GMT

Presence and Play

Trusting God When You’re Afraid of the Dark

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 21:24:00 GMT

Trusting God When You’re Afraid of the Dark

Four Ideas for Family Prayer

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:00:00 GMT

Four Ideas for Family Prayer

“God Gives Good Gifts to Everyone”

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 11:00:00 GMT

“God Gives Good Gifts to Everyone”

What Is Juneteenth? How Christians Can Engage with Black History

Thu, 30 May 2024 14:39:00 GMT

What Is Juneteenth? How Christians Can Engage with Black History

Helping Children Understand Lent through the Lens of Love

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 11:00:00 GMT

Helping Children Understand Lent through the Lens of Love

At the Crossroads of Faith and Work

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:08:00 GMT

At the Crossroads of Faith and Work

The Slow, Sacred Work of Lament

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 11:00:00 GMT

By Terra McDaniel, Author of Hopeful Lament

Lament is a profoundly spiritual act because grief and loss are just as sacred as trust and celebration. It is freedom to express pain and allow Love into our sorrows with us. It metabolizes grief, honoring our experiences as beings with bodies, souls, and spirits.

Lament is woven through Scripture and our shared histories, including practices of writing, singing, or otherwise enacting grief. It is visceral—smearing ashes, tearing fabric, crying aloud, or allowing tears to flow. Such things have been forgotten or suppressed for too many, often through misbegotten notions of faithfulness. In her book A Hole in the World, Amanda Held Opelt contends "most of us long to be sophisticated in our bereavement. It seems we are most lauded in our grief for being strong, for not allowing ourselves to be overcome. . . we are affirmed for our composure, praised for our resilience." I wrote Hopeful Lament because I learned by experience that attempts to avoid grief paradoxically leave us stranded in sorrow.

When loved ones are gone, the gifts and sometimes hardest moments of their lives must be remembered even as our lives continue. Absence must be acknowledged. When we experience illness, broken relationships, and other less visible sources of grief, we mourn. We weep on behalf of others who encounter pain. We hold collective sorrows like the compounded and ongoing losses of the pandemic, cultural division, and natural disasters. Ours is a time when a reimagining of practices that address individual and communal suffering is essential. All such things are part of the sacred work of lament.

In her book Sparrow Jan Richardson says, "grief moves by turns and spirals, a twisting path that I am not sure can even be called a path because it is not always that clear or orderly." A dear friend who lost her partner told me she'd learned that time isn't linear. Tending sorrow is often more like walking a labyrinth, including journeys inward, sacred moments of centering in quiet and stillness, and returns to dreams of resurrection. The Holy One who is a Man of Sorrows has capacity for our desolation and our consolation, for Lent as well as Easter.

Labyrinth walking is a practice that reflects life as pilgrimage toward connection with the Spirit and our truest selves. It illuminates the reality that we aren't stuck in place but are invited to respond to life as it is, rather than as we might wish it was. Labyrinths spiral yet always lead to a trustworthy center where we are welcome as we are. We don't need to suppress our questions before God. They also model the possibility of moving forward carrying wisdom and mercy received from the throne of Grace with outward journeys that loop and twist just as the trip inward did. Because life is like that.

Labyrinths teach us that steps which appear to be taking us a direction we don't want to go can eventually lead to safety. They are one way to discover lament as a kind of prayer which fosters healing and resilience. They are a chance to recognize God longs to meet us in places of pain.

Lament honors the past, lives the present courageously, and dares hope for redemption. Rilke wrote God whispers as we're made, "Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don't let yourself lose me."

Go carefully as you practice lament. It is good but never easy work. Know your soul has room for major and minor keys and that God considers your tears and restless nights as treasures (Psalm 56:8).

To walk a labyrinth to tend your burdens, try talking to God about your pain on the way inward. Stay in the center for at least three deep breaths, one for each Person of the Trinity. As you travel outward, what do you notice? How does the Spirit accompany you? Is it in silence? Do you sense a response of some kind? Are you reminded of a memory or passage of Scripture?

You can walk a labyrinth alone or invite your family or community to practice walking one together. If you find it hard to access a physical labyrinth, you could try a finger labyrinth. Here is one simple way to create your own.

5 Ways Seminary Deepened My Appreciation of Different Theological Perspectives

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 14:39:00 GMT

5 Ways Seminary Deepened My Appreciation of Different Theological Perspectives

How the Liturgical Church Transformed My Faith

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 14:39:00 GMT

How the Liturgical Church Transformed My Faith

A Conversation Between Tish Harrison Warren and Andy Crouch on Culture Making

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 15:08:00 GMT

A Conversation Between Tish Harrison Warren and Andy Crouch on Culture Making

How Studying the Bible Together Builds Vital Spiritual Community

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:39:00 GMT

How Studying the Bible Together Builds Vital Spiritual Community

A Conversation on Christian Singleness with Danielle Treweek

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 16:30:00 GMT

What does church history—and the Bible—have to say about the meaning of singleness? In this interview, Danielle Treweek (author of The Meaning of Singleness) talks about the misconceptions our society and the church perpetuates about single people and offers an eschatological vision of singleness that is both hopeful and profound.

Your book The Meaning of Singleness begins by examining the place of singleness in both society at large and the church in particular. What do you think is the most common misconception about singleness?

Danielle Treweek: Sadly, singleness really is the subject of a lot of misconceptions in both of those spheres. But what I find particularly concerning and disappointing is just how many of society's misconceptions about singleness are echoed in the contemporary evangelical church.

On that topic, there is a lot to explore (four chapters worth, in fact!), but if I were to boil it down to the most common misconception, I think it would be that both society and the church see singleness as a state of "lacking." Lacking in love. Lacking in sexual fulfilment. Lacking in relational intimacy. Lacking in purpose. Lacking in possibility. Lacking in belonging. Lacking in authentic self-realization. Both spheres typically define and characterize singleness by what it isn't, rather than by what it is. Or, to put it another way, singleness is primarily thought to be the absence of good, rather than a good in and of itself.

In the book, you offer a robust retrieval of singleness—exegetical, historical, and theological. What did you discover that was the most surprising or encouraging during that process?

Treweek: When I started my exercise of retrieval, I already had a broad understanding of the general landscape of singleness throughout church history. However, I soon found myself surrounded by a diverse cloud of witnesses who challenged me with insights about singleness in the Christian life and community that I had simply not ever encountered before. That was enormously encouraging, exciting, and energizing! But, if I'm being honest, there were times when I also found myself a bit saddened and bewildered by it, too. Why was all of this new to me? How had I not encountered so many of these profound insights before? What could possibly explain or justify the contemporary evangelical church having forgotten our own amazingly rich theological, exegetical, and pastoral inheritance in this regard? It was really a double-edged surprise.

You also cast an eschatological vision of singleness. What do you mean by that, and why is that good news for the church?

Treweek: As evangelical Christians, we are generally eager to emphasize the eschatological significance of earthly marriage—namely as the "mysterious" foreshadowing of the heavenly marriage between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). And that's a good thing! But it turns out that our own Christian ancestors were just as eager (if not more so) to emphasize the eschatological significance of earthly singleness. Rather than seeing it as a life of lacking, they understood it to be a life of profound eschatological possibility. You'll need to read the book to find out all the different ways they perceived that to be true! But in summary, those who came before us honored singleness as a life situation that intrinsically called God's people to remember we live in this creation as those who are already citizens of the next.

How has your experience as a single person informed your ministry?

Treweek: While my own singleness has obviously been important for the trajectory and shape of my work, I think it has actually been other single Christians who have most deeply informed my ministry in this regard. Walking in tandem with them; rejoicing when they rejoice; grieving as they have grieved; praying with and for them; empathizing in our shared disappointments; working through feelings of isolation; serving alongside them; exhorting them to keep trusting Jesus, and having them do the same for me. Ultimately, it's been their singleness that has most significantly informed my ministry.

What is your hope for those who pick up and read your book?

Treweek: One of my hopes is that those who read The Meaning of Singleness might be better equipped to love, respect, and value the single members of their church communities. And, of course, I hope it will encourage unmarried Christians (whether they be never-married, divorced, or widowed) to delight more and more in the intrinsic goodness of their singleness. But I also pray that those who read this book might better understand the vitally important and God-glorifying role singles have to play in the church's understanding of her own unique identity. I hope my book might help us all to better realize it's not simply that single Christians need the church, but the church who really and truly needs single Christians.

Approaching the News with Intellectual Virtue

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 19:53:00 GMT

By Travis Dickinson, author of Wandering Toward God

The slogan "the news never sleeps" is now something of an understatement. We not only have the so-called twenty-four-hour news cycle, but we also have many streams of twenty-four-hour news cycles from which we can choose. Harvard University's The Future of Media Project calculates there are nearly 3,100 newsrooms of major US daily news sources representing a wide spectrum of viewpoints and approaches.

With all this coming at us, it often seems like the world has spun out of control. We are forced to look attentively at the tragedies of war, school shootings, scandals—both political and ecclesiastical—and many other stranger-than-fiction stories that break, shock us, and then fade before the day is out. While the news is supposed to be without bias or opinion, all stories of course get filtered through an editorial process. It's precisely here that biases can subtly creep in. And much of the news we get today is, without apology, slanted toward a particular bias or even accompanied by commentary and opinion. To be sure, there is news that is neutral or even from time to time positive toward Christian faith. But there are also some loud voices that are quite hostile toward Christian faith. This, it seems to me, is the current state of the news of the world.

Engaging the News of the World

As Christians, what should our approach be to this stormy deluge of the news of the world?

We probably can't, at this point, ignore the news. It is woven into the fabric of our daily lives, especially for any of us who have digital engagement. Many of us find out what's going on, perhaps even on the other side of the planet, in real time with a ding from the devices in our pockets. But even if we could ignore the news of the world, I suggest we shouldn't. There's often a strong pull in us to shelter in place from perceived threats to our Christian faith. Christians tend to cloister in safe places so that we are not harmed by the messages of the world.

There are certainly times in life to take shelter from threats, and while I understand this response, if we ignore the news of the world, it limits our ability to effectively engage the world. At the risk of being too obvious, the news is a primary source to know what's going on in the world around us. But it also informs us culturally on how the world around us is thinking about what's going on. To ignore all this would not steward well our cultural moment in history: in being, as Jesus put it, the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-15).

Sipping, Not Gulping the News

We shouldn't hide from the news of the world, but we also shouldn't imbibe the ever-relentless stream of the news. Let's be honest. Some people are addicted to the news. You know who you are! They can't seem to go without a news update even for a few minutes.

Constant consumption of the news is not only unnecessary, but it is not good for the soul. The reality is that the same handful of news stories tends to dominate media outlets such that "breaking news" is often, at best, one or two new details of a story. We typically don't need to gulp the news down. We just need a sip here and there, and then we'll be sufficiently informed.

The addiction to the news becomes a real problem when we are consuming news-media more than experiencing reality for ourselves! The news provides information about the reality of others as they have experienced it. We are of course naturally curious and want to know what's happening in the world. But if we don't ever get out there and experience the world for ourselves, then it's time to go catch a wave or climb a mountain. When we come back in, the news will still be there, and we can get caught up in short order.

Intellectual Virtue

Okay, but how should we consume the news? The answer to this is going to involve a brief discussion about intellectual virtue.

The worst thing that we can do is passively absorb all that comes at us. This is an intellectual vice no matter if what comes at us is a Christian or anti-Christian message. If all we ever do is passively absorb what comes at us, then even if it is a Christian message, we hold it uncritically. The fact that we hold a Christian message versus an anti-Christian message is really just an accident of our circumstances. Had it been some other message, we'd be holding that one.

Instead, we need a critical mind. Having a critical mind means that if we hold a view, we hold it on the basis of knowledge. We hold it because of what we know. Now, we can't always just know whether something is true. For almost everything that we know, we are guided by reason and evidence that support our belief. When we base our beliefs on reason and evidence, we don't hold our views accidentally. In fact, we hold our views in an intellectually virtuous way.

While this is a discussion for another day, we should have a critical mind for all our beliefs, including our Christian beliefs. We should be Christians not accidentally but because we have reason to believe that Christianity is true, good, and beautiful. Our beliefs should be a matter of what we know is the case. And there is good reason and strong evidence to believe that Christianity is indeed true, good, and beautiful.

Okay, back to the news. As we sip on our dose of the news of the world, we need to exercise intellectual virtue. What is an intellectual virtue? An intellectual virtue is a habit of the mind that leads to rationality and ultimately to truth. Intellectual virtues include things such as open-mindedness, curiosity, and intellectual versions of diligence, prudence, and courage.

While all the intellectual virtues should be applied to our consumption of the news, I suggest that two in particular be brought to bear on the messages that come at us. We need to be both open-minded to the truth and intellectually steadfast in what we already know. Let me explain.

Being Open-Minded and Intellectually Steadfast

Being open-minded, we approach the news with openness to what's going on in the world and the various ways of understanding it. This means that we ought to go to news outlets that are of different political and religious persuasion, as well as our trusted sources. All ideas that come at us should get a hearing, and once again, this is a hearing of evidence and reason. We should be open to ideas precisely because they may be true. And these ideas are ways in which fellow human beings see the world. If a claim turns out to be false and we can offer evidence for this, then this is a very good thing. We can say why it is false.

Now, being open-minded doesn't mean we give every view equal attention. As Aristotle pointed out long ago, the excess of any virtue turns it into a vice. Too much courage turns courage into acting rashly. Too much prudence turns the virtue into complete inaction. Similarly, overdoing open-mindedness, where we give too much attention to all ideas, would not be intellectually virtuous. This situation, I take it, is what G. K. Chesterton had in mind when in 1908, he wrote in the Illustrated London News, "An open mind is a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut." Our minds should shut on the truth. But to do so, they have to open in order to consider an idea and its truth.

Along with being open-minded, we should also be intellectually steadfast. Being steadfast is when we don't allow things to come along and simply topple all that we already know. This is sometimes called intellectual tenacity. Presumably, we know a lot about the world. When we hear something that runs contrary to our knowledge, we don't dismiss it outright, but we also don't let it have its way with us. We take what we know, and we evaluate the claim for its truth. We may have to revise our beliefs, but this is determined by one's total evidence.

Here's the picture: We, with an open mind, give ideas a fair hearing, but we bring what we know about the world to bear on these ideas. We steadfastly stick with what we know is true until the evidence bears out the fact that it isn't.

In sum, we should not ignore the news. It is a terrific source for understanding our cultural moment. But like every powerful thing, we should approach it carefully. We ought to approach with intellectual virtue. In particular, we should be open-minded, knowing that we will be letting in views with which we disagree. But we should also be steadfast in what we already know so that our minds can close on the truth.

A Conversation on Defiant Faith with Bill and Will Kynes

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 16:32:00 GMT

How can we as Christians practice defiant faith in the face of suffering? In their book Wrestling with Job, Bill Kynes, a lifelong pastor, and his son Will Kynes, a Job scholar, guide readers on a journey through the book of Job. In this interview, they discuss their writing process, their personal connections to the book, and Job's powerful lessons on perseverance.

As a father and son, how did you decide to write a book together? What was your writing process like?

Bill Kynes: After thirty-one years of preaching in one church, I finally summoned the courage to preach a series of sermons on the book of Job. I was fortunate, however, to have a partner in this project: my son Will. Will had done his Cambridge PhD research on Job, and our weekly conversations provided insight and ideas that became an integral part of my preaching. This book attempts to share that process of integrating academic biblical scholarship with pastoral reflection that we enjoyed in those conversations.

Will Kynes: We haven't written anything formally together before, but conversations like those frequently contribute to the writing each of us does separately. More than that, there's hardly anything that I have written, going all the way back to my first feeble attempts at essays written on wide-ruled paper, that hasn't profited from my father's careful editorial eye. Writing this book was an enjoyable opportunity for me to return the favor. We started with my father's sermons and our recollections of the insights from biblical scholarship that we had discussed. We then agreed on further points of biblical scholarship that are important for a fuller understanding of Job, which I then wrote up. Then, we each had the opportunity to edit the other's work.

What is it about Job that makes the story so compelling to you?

Will: I have long had a passion for the book of Job going back to an experience I had with debilitating illness when I was living in Kenya after college. I read through the book then and was struck by how it was asking precisely the questions that I was struggling with, but the answers it offered were nothing like I expected them to be. That led to now nearly two decades of researching, writing, teaching, and speaking about the book.

Bill: As a pastor, I have seen people struggle with the conflict between what they believe about God's goodness and love and the hard things they sometimes have to endure. Job takes us into that struggle. As I preached through the book, I hoped that my exposition would help my listeners see that the Bible is realistic about life and its challenges and that Job provides a model of faith in the midst of suffering that we can all learn from.

I'm struck by your phrase "defiant faith" as it relates to Job. What does that mean? How might Job serve as a model to readers for their own defiant faith?

Will: We've noticed that readers of the Bible, both in the academy and the church, tend to separate faith in God from arguing with, complaining to, or even accusing God. Faith, it is often assumed, has to be submissive, and challenging God must be evidence of a lack of faith, of doubt or even skepticism. The book of Job demonstrates that this is a false dichotomy. Job holds together faith and defiance; more than that, he argues with God precisely because he has faith that God is good, just, and powerful enough to make things right.

Shockingly, though Job hasn't pulled any punches in his verbal battle with God, at the end of the book, God approves of Job's speech (Job 42:8-9) and rewards him for his faithfulness. This reflects a common response to suffering and injustice across the Hebrew Bible. Job joins the heroes of Israelite faith, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the psalmists and prophets, in demanding that God make things right.

Your title, "Wrestling with Job," could mean "wrestling with the content in Job" or "wrestling alongside Job." Does one of these fit better to you?

Bill: That double meaning is intentional—we're glad you caught it! Job is a very difficult book to read, and we want to encourage our readers not to shy away from any of the challenges its content poses, but to wrestle honestly with them.

The Search for Meaning: Finding Your Purpose in Life

Fri, 13 May 2022 21:04:00 GMT

The Search for Meaning: Finding Your Purpose in Life

Four Things I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 19:53:00 GMT

By Jason Cusick, author of The Anxiety Field Guide

I have struggled with anxiety my whole life. I just didn't know it. From a young age I was a highly sensitive person. I was a creative boy. I spent a lot of time in my own head and was uniquely aware of my five senses. I also was an entertainer. I liked to make people laugh and paid more attention to what people thought of me than was healthy. Added to this, I grew up in a home that was very predictable . . . and overly clean. Years later, my mother would say that she had undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.

When I became an adult, all of these layers of my life contributed to my success as a chaplain, author, and pastor. I was thoughtful, imaginative, sensitive to others, and organized. What I didn't realize was the anxiety brewing beneath the surface—rumination, obsessive thinking, hypersensitivity, and an intolerance to uncertainty—that hit me when I accepted the call to be the new lead pastor of my church.

In my first years as lead pastor, I was having panic attacks, insomnia, and self-destructive thoughts. Through the help of some close friends, I found my way to a counselor who specialized in anxiety and OCD. That's when everything started to change for the better. I learned more about myself, my brain, and how to take control of my anxious thoughts and feelings. And the best part is I discovered a new relationship with Jesus that has brought me the peace I've been looking for.

You or someone you love struggles with anxiety. It is the number one mental wellness issue in the world today . . . and it's not going away. The good news is that there is hope. When it comes to anxiety, the move from surviving to thriving involves four basic principles that if embraced and practiced can make a world of difference.

Here are the four things I wish I'd known about anxiety.

1. Everybody Has Anxiety

Anxiety is the body's automatic response to a perceived threat. God created us marvelously complex (Psalm 139:14). We all have a small almond-shaped area in our brain called the amygdala—an alarm center that lets us know when to be afraid. At the first sign of danger, the amygdala sends signals to the body for fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Think about the last time you got scared. You didn't have to tell your brain and body to react. They just did it. That's a gift from God! Then when the threat is gone, the alarm turns off and you calm down. That's good anxiety.

But sometimes that alarm in the brain goes off and doesn't turn off. Or the alarm goes off and there is no danger. We are suddenly nervous and we don't know why. We get triggered by something someone said or did, and we are flooded with restless thoughts and feelings. And in more serious cases, these feelings of fear and panic can interfere with our relationships, jobs, and health.

Fortunately, we are not our brains. Rather than having anxiety about our anxiety, we can practice what's called normalization. We can tell ourselves that anxiety is normal and that our brains just need to be retrained. Instead of trying to fix or stop anxiety, we can invite God into our anxious moments. With self-compassion, we can thank God for giving us such sensitive brains, even though they sometimes sense danger when it's not there. And we can ask God to help us with a patient and intentional process of changing how we respond to our anxious thoughts and feelings.

2. Anxiety Grows Through Avoidance

I learned early in life that if something is dangerous—touching a hot stove, walking across a busy street, going into a dark alley at night—I should avoid it. That's called wisdom. What I didn't realize is that the more I avoid something, the more my brain registers it as dangerous, and the more anxiety increases.

In my new role as lead pastor, I found myself avoiding difficult conversations and big decisions. The avoidance didn't calm me down. When I avoided things, it was like my brain learned, Oh, this is something to be sacred of? Okay, I'll make a note of this. When it comes around again, I'll turn on the alarm even louder! Over time, my anxiety grew.

The primary way we work through anxiety issues is by what's called exposure. Simply put, face what you fear. Start by simply imagining what makes you anxious, allow the feelings to come, and then work to remind yourself that you are okay. Next, little by little, take more steps toward what you fear. When you start to face what makes you anxious, gently acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, remember that God loves you, and invite yourself to respond differently to your anxious thoughts and feelings.

3. Care for Your Whole Self

I have never been a good sleeper. I snored for years, until I went to a sleep study and discovered I have sleep apnea. I started using a CPAP machine at night, and not only did my sleep improve but so did my mood. I also learned that the human body can't distinguish hunger from thirst. By the time you crave food, you may be dehydrated! I started drinking more water and that helped my mood too!

We are created to love God with our whole selves—heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:30). Anxiety isn't just about what's going on in our head; it's about our integrated selves. In addition to normalization and exposure, I learned about care. Self-care involves our diet, rest and sleep, exercise, healthy scheduling, managing screen time, guarding content we take in, fun hobbies, affirming friendships, and counseling that is focused on exposure and response prevention. This last one is important. I have always been used to traditional talk therapy, but when it comes to anxiety, talking about my problems is another way I ruminate. I need skills! I also found some low-dose medications that got me out of the slump so I could hone my skills.

Make a simple list of different areas of your life in which you could be healthier and happier. You might not think they are connected to anxiety, but they could be! Find some supportive friends who can encourage you to be an overall healthier person.

4. Say YES to Becoming More Resilient

Think of something you used to be afraid of and are not afraid of anymore—the dark, riding a bike for the first time, fear of the water. Now you go to sleep with blackout curtains, bike ride for leisure, and love swimming. How did you do it? You realized that it's okay to be afraid, and then you faced your fear (multiples times). Maybe you got hurt but you had supportive people who cared for you. The anxiety didn't go away. Your brain still sends a little alarm when the lights click off, you mount a two-wheeled vehicle, or you jump into a large amount of liquid, because there is still danger. But what's happened is you are less anxious about it.

Desensitization is when we are less reactive to the anxiety we have. Again, anxiety can be good. It's a warning signal protecting us from danger. Wisdom is knowing what to fear and what not to fear. There's a great story in the New Testament of Jesus walking on water and inviting one of his followers to join him (Matthew 14:22-33). Jesus invites his friend Peter (a fisherman!) to step out of a boat and walk to him on the water. In the same way, Jesus is inviting us to take slow steps of faith toward him rather than focusing on what we fear. Like Peter, we might falter and sink, but as we grow more sensitive to God's love for us and less sensitive to the false alarms in our brain, we can find long-lasting healing from anxiety.

Spiritual Formation and Books: Reading as a Spiritual Practice

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 17:49:00 GMT

By Cindy Bunch, IVP Vice President, Editorial

How do we grow closer to God? How can we become more like him? How do we feel his presence in our lives?

The life of faith is full of these questions. As Christians, we desire to consistently grow in our relationship with God. Devoting ourselves to spiritual formation is one way that we can draw closer to God throughout our journey with Christ. But what does that look like?

When we began the IVP Formatio^® line in 2006, we chose the nautilus—one of the sea's oldest creatures—for our logo because of its rich symbolic meaning. Beginning with a tight center, its remarkable growth pattern can be seen in the ever-enlarging chambers that spiral outward. The nautilus represents the deep inward work of spiritual formation that begins rooted in our souls and then opens to the world as we experience spiritual transformation throughout the ups and downs of life. This is the process of being spiritually formed in the image of Christ.

Books are wonderful resources for our spiritual formation. As a spiritual practice, reading connects us with wise mentors from throughout the centuries.

What Is Spiritual Formation?

Scripture describes the process of our spiritual transformation: "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 2:3:16-18 NIV). Spiritual formation is a term that is used to describe this process of becoming more like Christ.

Within each of us is a longing to draw closer to God—a "God-shaped space," in Pascal's words. Spiritual formation is our lifelong journey of growing ever closer to God.

Robert Mulholland offers a four-part definition of spiritual formation in his book Invitation to a Journey: (1) a process (2) of being formed (3) in the image of Christ (4) for the sake of others. He writes, "Scripture is quite clear in its insistence that we have fallen short of God's purposes for our creation. It is equally clear in its revelation that God works graciously through all the aspects of human life to bring us to the fulfillment of God's will for our wholeness. Thus spiritual formation is a process of involvement with God's gracious work." As we are formed, we discover how we are uniquely created in the image of God and we uncover God's call for us in the world.

Spiritual practices create a context for our growth in Christ.

The Contemporary Spiritual Formation Movement

The growth of spiritual formation and spiritual practice in the evangelical Protestant world has its origins in a book. In 1978 Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline was first published and was a major influence. Foster taught twelve essential spiritual practices, such as meditation, fasting, and solitude, that date back to the early Christian church fathers and mothers but had been mostly forgotten by contemporary Christians.

Some Christians were confused by Foster's emphasis on Christian meditation, as the New Age movement was in full swing at this time, and IVP received some complaint letters due to our 1983 publication of a booklet by Foster called Meditative Prayer. While other forms of meditation focus on simply emptying the mind, what Foster was introducing was a type of prayer that includes listening for God's voice—both in times of silent reflection and in careful reading and rereading of Scripture. This type of prayer provides an anecdote to our human tendency to repeatedly tell God what we want without asking for God's guidance.

Foster's landmark book opened the way for a new spirituality movement. In collaboration with his close friend Dallas Willard (who authored The Spirit of the Disciplines in 1988), Foster founded Renovaré, a grassroots ministry that teaches spiritual formation practices. Willard's full story is compellingly told in the IVP biography authored by Gary Moon called Becoming Dallas Willard.

A Curriculum for Christlikeness

The Formatio line from IVP began with the vision of Willard and Foster in mind. We had already published Hearing God by Dallas Willard in 1999 and were able to bring it into our new line as a foundational book. In 2011 Foster revised and significantly expanded his Meditative Prayer booklet, and it is now available under the title Sanctuary of the Soul. We were also delighted that one of the inaugural books under the Formatio brand was Longing for God, which Foster coauthored with Westmont College president Gayle Beebe.

At the time that Renovaré was founded, Richard Foster was teaching at Friends University. One of his students was James Bryan Smith. Jim Smith became one of the early Renovaré leaders, teaching alongside his mentors Foster and Willard. Smith's The Good and Beautiful Series was his answer to Willard's request that he create a "curriculum for Christlikeness" to teach formational practices to contemporary lay people. At that time, Jim began the Apprentice Institute at Friends University, training the next generation in spiritual practices. The influence of Foster and Willard continues today with the 2022 release of the latest volume of Smith's series, The Good and Beautiful You.

A Rich History of Diversity

The contemporary Protestant movement of spiritual formation is sometimes regarded as being for the White church. But, of course, many of the church fathers, such as St. Augustine and Tertullian, were of African descent. In her book Soul Care in African American Practice, Barbara Peacock reveals how the spiritual practices she learned in her DMin program with Leadership Transformations Inc. at Gordon-Conwell are also a part of the African American Christian tradition. We learn about spiritual direction and lectio divina by exploring the life of Frederick Douglass, for example, and Peacock shares about how the life of Rosa Parks reflects the practices of meditation and contemplation.

One of the ways that reading contributes to our spiritual growth is through the opportunity to learn from the diversity of voices that make up the church. Books provide access to new spiritual mentors.

Reading and Spiritual Growth

Reading can be a meaningful spiritual practice, but reading books for spiritual growth is not about the number of pages covered. It's about what we take in. It's about connecting with God through the writer and finding a deep moment of insight, affirmation, or renewal. The introduction to the book Devotional Classics, edited by Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith, quotes Jean-Pierre de Caussade describing, "Read quietly, slowly, word for word to enter the subject more with the heart than the mind. . . . From time to time make short pauses to allow these truths time to flow through all the recesses of the soul."

Formational reading calls us into our deepest desires and helps us to become our true selves in the light of God's grace.

The Role of Community

Spiritual formation is not a solo journey. Ruth Haley Barton writes, "Spiritual transformation is not an end in itself but rather leads to the ability to discern and do the will of God (Romans 12:1, 2) and so a mission often emerges. But the mission grows out of our commitment to gather around the presence of Christ in life-transforming ways and to listen deeply for his direction in our lives. This is the essence of spiritual community as Jesus defines it (Mark 3:34, 35)." It's important to note, first, that this community experience is a critical part of formation, and second, that we are formed in order to reflect Christ in the world.

The need for community in the spiritual journey has led to the creation of many organizations offering teaching and training resources (both online and in person) in order to foster spiritual growth. For example, Renovaré offers an online book group experience with authors like Tish Harrison Warren (Liturgy of the Ordinary). And the Apprentice Institute offers an annual gathering featuring the contemporary leaders of the spiritual formation movement.

Books for Your Own Spiritual Formation Journey

Reading is an essential path to understanding God through the mentorship of writers both ancient and contemporary. A book written with the goal of shaping its readers spiritually has a unique set of qualities. As you start your own spiritual formation reading journey, look for books that

draw you into the very presence of God, causing you to want to pause to pray, meditate, and reflect, stirring both the head and the heart.
speak authentically of how the authors are addressing spiritual formation in their own lives while also pointing you to God and helping you see how you can relate to God in similar ways.
apply classic disciplines and practices to contemporary life.
reflect the history of Christian spirituality, drawing on writings going back to the church fathers and the saints of the Christian tradition.
include a biblical perspective with an appreciation for how the Word comes alive in the Spirit.
invite you to pursue God out of desire rather than duty.
provide a mentorship that feels like sitting down with a friend and talking about the spiritual life.

Recommended Resources for Spiritual Growth

There are countless resources that help Christians invest in their spiritual formation and growth. While not an exhaustive list, these are some of the organizations, leaders, and educational programs we have partnered with throughout our history, as well as some books we think will be meaningful mentors for you on your own spiritual journey.

Organizations and Leaders:

Educational Programs:

Explore Books for Spiritual Formation:

Browse all of IVP's spiritual formation and Formatio titles and check out the featured books below. You can also sign up for IVP's spiritual formation newsletter to hear from spiritual formation experts and learn about reflections and practices to try yourself.