As I sat and began to think about what to write for this second article with the goal of some kind of practical equipping, I thought back on some of the most important lessons that I’d learned – some of the most memorable and influential aspects of my spiritual life. I already wrote about my love of Biblical Studies in a prior article, but another idea quickly came to mind as I thought back to my time as an undergraduate at Messiah College (now Messiah University). One particular class stood out – Christian Spirituality. It was taught by my advisor, whom we lovingly referred to as “Uncle Jay,” and we spent time talking about various aspects of spirituality, including spiritual disciplines. I took the course during my first year at Messiah and learning those lessons about connecting to God gave me an important spiritual foundation that continues to inform and inspire the ways that I connect with God. And so, I want to spend this time and blog real estate talking about the spiritual disciplines and how we can continue to connect to God through intentional action.
A quick search on the internet will provide quite a large variety of spiritual disciplines and ways to discuss spirituality, but for this article, I want to limit my discussion to the books that I engaged back in my first year at Messiah: Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Streams of Living Water. Not only do these two books provide a solid basis for understanding spirituality, but they work well together as a combined experience. Celebration of Discipline (as the name would suggest) focuses on the disciplines themselves, discussing the distinct actions which can help us connect to God. Instead of talking more about those actions, Streams of Living Water focuses on six larger categories of spirituality which he calls streams and relates those streams to the various spiritual disciplines, providing a broad spiritual background through which we can understand the relationships between different disciplines and what those disciplines can say about our personal understanding of our relationship with God. The six streams of tradition are Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical, and Incarnational.
The Contemplative Tradition focuses on prayer and intimate, one-on-one connection with God. This is the stream informed by John the Baptist, the Desert Mothers and Fathers, and the movement. Foster describes the tradition by saying, “Put simply, the Contemplative life is the steady gaze of the soul upon the God who loves us.”1 The main strength of the Tradition lies in the intimate way that it connects us with God. Being contemplative means reaching beyond a cerebral understanding of faith and drawing closer to a personal relationship with God through prayer. However, if distorted, the contemplative life can cause us to forget about our everyday lives – we become so focused on our relationship with God that we forget about the other people around us and caring for them.
Moving towards disciplines, the contemplative stream thrives on the disciplines of prayer and solitude. Praying can look like the typical style of talking to God, but contemplative prayer specifically might be a more silent affair, listening for the movement of the Spirit. Another avenue of prayer might be praying the scriptures – listening for God amidst the living scriptures that we read. Solitude is slightly more tricky to define than prayer and is not the same thing as loneliness. In Celebration of Discipline, Foster writes, “Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”2 Practicing solitude is tied to an inner silence, and relates to the listening style of prayer. But in a less formal sense of discipline, solitude is the tradition of “holy leisure.” A nap, a solo walk in the park, or simply listening to the birds are all ways of being disciplined in the contemplative stream.
The second tradition, called the Holiness Tradition, prioritizes being able to respond to the world and its struggles in a holy way. This is directly related to the Wesleyan Holiness but is larger in both theological and historical dimensions. Foster writes, “Holiness means the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. It means being “response-able,” able to respond appropriately to the demands of life.”3 It is less about following a specific set of rules and regulations, but about forming and transforming our hearts to be more like God. This kind of holiness is reminiscent of Menno Simons or the Puritans, both of whom deeply focus on becoming closer to God through the ways that they act. Its main strength is allowing us to focus on our hearts and minds, pushing us to constantly refine and transform them to be more like Christ. But when Holiness becomes distorted, we can slip into an attitude of legalism, where we care less about following a living God and instead force one specific means of interpretation to dominate the way we approach God.
Being disciplined in this Holiness Tradition looks a bit different than other traditions. Holiness is about growth and progress; so we must learn from all disciplines to continue growing depending on the specific place in our spiritual journeys. But one thing that is important to a spiritual journey is companionship. We do not live a life of isolation, and so in our spiritual lives, we can find comfort, accountability, and a different perspective when we choose to walk alongside others. And finally, living the life of holiness paradoxically means that we need to accept our imperfections. We will stumble, we will fall, and by the grace of God, we will get back up and continue walking. Holiness is a constant journey, constantly reminding us of how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.
The third tradition outlined is the Charismatic Tradition, and this tradition tends to be very closely linked to the Pentecostal church, much like the Holiness Tradition connecting to the specifically Wesleyan interpretation. And while this Charismatic means of connecting with God does link itself to the Pentecostal movement, it also links itself to monastic movements like those of St. Francis. In defining the Charismatic Tradition, Foster points out that there is really no such thing as an “uncharismatic Christian,” as we all live into the reality of the Holy Spirit beyond ourselves. However, the Charismatic Tradition specifically focuses on that other reality to which we belong as those living and breathing through the Spirit of God.4 Embracing Charismatic faith reminds us that we cannot tame the Holy Spirit and rebukes us when we allow our faith to become too much “business as usual.” However, being so focused on the Spirit can lead to the perils of superstition and rejecting the rational side of our faith for “signs and wonders.”
The specific attention towards the spiritual side of our faith means that the Charismatic Tradition works particularly well with disciplines of Prayer and Celebration. Being in tune with the Spirit can empower us to know how to pray, whom to pray for, and can even lead into prayers of laying hands and healing. Celebration, meanwhile, fits in as the natural outpouring of God’s love that comes for communion with the Holy Spirit. In Celebration of Discipline, Foster writes, “Another benefit of celebration is its ability to give us perspective…Together the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless all celebrate the glory and wonder of God. There is no leveler of caste systems like a festivity.”5 Holy celebration reminds us that we are all connected to something deeper and more meaningful than ourselves, and pushes us into the charismatic space where we identify as denizens of heaven rather than denizens of the earth.
Foster’s fourth stream of tradition is the Social Justice Tradition. Tracing its way through the Magnificat and groups like the Salvation Army and Civil Rights Movement, Social Justice connects the words we read in the scriptures to the way we should be acting with one another. Foster himself writes that Social Justice is very closely linked to the Holiness Tradition, saying, “Social Justice is where the central issue in the Holiness Tradition – love – meets the road.”6 If we want to pursue a life of virtuous living, then that virtue must extend horizontally to those around us as well as vertically between us and God. And that action is the crux of the Social Justice Tradition’s strength. We are compelled and called towards a right ordering of society in the way that we live in relationship with one another and all of creation. Because we know how the world ought to be, it gives us hope to continue moving towards that vision of the future – one step at a time. However, that hope also carries with it a potential for problems, the greatest of which is the danger of Social Justice becoming an end in itself. If we are saying that we care for one another completely but choose to neglect the spiritual aspects of that care then we are not doing our work in connection to God but just out of a sense of “wanting to help,” then we cease being the Church and turn into a sad excuse of a non-profit organization.
After saying that “social justice shouldn’t be its own end,” it feels a bit hypocritical to say that Social Justice serves as its own discipline. But in reality, social justice is a multi-faceted action that comprises a multitude of different avenues for the spiritual disciplines, and particularly the discipline of Service. Service has been a longstanding way that various faith communities have strived to show the quality of their faith through the way that they engage in the world around them. Serving others allows us to connect with communities around us and find avenues to help with the injustices in our world. Whether that looks like volunteering in a soup kitchen or spending a year serving through an organization like the Peace Corps, going and serving the world around us is an important way to connect our faith to tangible actions to better the world around us.
The fifth stream of faith is the Evangelical Tradition. This is the tradition associated with George Whitfield and the Great Awakenings of the 18th century, as well as the continuing missionary movements of the Church and evangelistic efforts of modern figures like the late Billy Graham. It focuses itself on proclaiming the Good News of Jesus, on the centrality of Scripture as the source of that Good News, and the early Church as a model for interpreting the Good News. There is some clear connection between this broader tradition and the portions of the Church that have taken the name Evangelical over the last few centuries, but a distinction of this stream is the clear focus on spreading the Good News as a means to its own end. This is not to say that there are other means by which we can attain the end of spreading the Good News, but that those other means are not the focus of the Evangelical Stream as Foster defines it. This focus on sharing Christ’s message has several key strengths, including the centrality of Christ’s call to disciple the nations. By making that call central to the lives of Christians, it forces us to step outside our insular communities and bring Jesus out into every aspect of our lives, in the hope that we can plant seeds for the growth of the Church. However, like every other stream, this one can become distorted and lead to potential pitfalls. One of the most tragic pitfalls of the Evangelical Tradition specifically is the temptation towards a separationist mentality. When minor differences in scriptural interpretation turn into major points of contention, it leads the Church into more splintered and separated fragments, replacing a spirit of unity with a spirit of divisiveness.
Going out and sharing the Good News (i.e. practicing the Evangelical Tradition) seems straightforward enough. Foster illuminates that simplicity, stating, “For most of us the problem is not knowing what we are to do; it is doing it.”7 Going and sharing the Good News is a deceptively simple call, but requires us to step outside of our comfortable communities of faith and risk awkward and uncomfortable conversations with people who already have their sets of biases either towards or against the Church. Getting to know those people around us is just as important as getting to know our scripture. In learning about the people around us, we are able to discern with the Spirit what needs to be said and the responses necessary. As we spend time with those around us and preach Christ with our lives, the words that we say will simply be the confirmation of that message.
The sixth and final of Foster’s streams is the Incarnational Tradition. This is the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Icons and the Renaissance. Compared to the other traditions, this one focuses on feeling the invisible Holy Spirit in this visible and ordinary world. Foster defines it thusly: “The Incarnational Tradition concerns itself with the relationship between spirit and matter. In short, God is manifest to us through material means.”8 This tradition reminds us that the material and spiritual are not in opposition to one another, but in fact, closely linked. We see this in the rituals and ceremonies that we hold closely, from Communion and Love Feast to singing hymns in majestic four-part harmony. This stream’s greatest strength is reminding us that God is truly and fully with us. We do not have to gaze skyward in search of a far-off God, for God is with us and among us. However, it does carry with it the peril of idolatry. While we value and affirm our traditions and rituals, we must resist the temptation to perform those rituals for their own sake and place them above God.
Practicing this stream is done in every part of our living, as long as we are mindful of God’s presence in the world. However, Foster’s discipline of Worship is deeply connected to this mindset. As we worship God through the mundane means of music and spoken word, we affirm that God is manifest in our hearts and our world. Practicing the specific sacraments of our faith communities is another way that we practice the Incarnational Tradition. But even outside of our specific times set aside for worship, we also practice being Incarnational when we serve one another and remember the spirituality of work. Our scriptures are full of God’s work from beginning to end, and we can honor that divine work by continuing to care for the created world around us.
These six streams of tradition are an incredibly helpful tool for us to understand the ways that we connect to God, and to a point, some of us might feel more affinity towards one stream or another, and that is okay. We are all unique with our particular ways of connecting with God. But the reality is that all of us need all six of these streams in our lives. The prayerfulness of the Contemplative is the foundation of the virtue of Holiness and the spirituality of the Charismatic. And that virtue and spirituality compels us to go out and serve in Social Justice and spread the word in the Evangelical; all the while we are reminded of and inspired by God’s presence in the world through the Incarnational actions of our faith. Without a proper balance of the streams (however that looks in our lives), we swerve ever closer to peril and pitfall.
This article is an incredibly brief rundown of Foster’s book, so if you are interested in this I would highly recommend reading the whole thing. Both Streams of Living Water and Celebration of Discipline are great texts to begin understanding our spirituality and the ways that we connect with God and one another. And if you are even more interested in spiritual disciplines, I’d also recommend Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun. All of these texts have been incredibly helpful in my spiritual life, and I pray that they, and this article, can help you to think a bit more deeply about and act a bit more intentionally towards your relationship with God, yourself, and the world around you.
May it be so, Cousins in Christ.
Zechariah Houser is the Coordinator of Short-term Service for the Church of the Brethren. He previously served the Crest Manor Church of the Brethren in South Bend, Indiana. Houser is a graduate of Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in Youth Ministry and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. He holds a master of divinity degree from Duke Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
- Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water. (New York: Harper-Collins, 1998), 49.
- Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline. 3rd ed. (New York: Harper-Collins, 1988), 96.
- Foster, Streams, 82.
- Foster, Streams, 125.
- Foster, Celebrations, 196.
- Foster, Streams, 166.
- Foster, Streams, 232.
- Foster, Streams, 260