Books about Formations from Amazon.com

In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be.

Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found.

Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God.

Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth..
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More than thirty years ago, Richard Bandler set out to discover how some therapists effected startling change with their clients, while others argued about theories while their patients waited in vain for help. Now widely regarded as the world's greatest hypnotist and one of the most brilliant minds in the field of personal change, Richard Bandler created patterns that became the bedrock of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), arguably one of the most profoundly effective approaches for self-improvement. In Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation, he returns to his roots: hypnotic phenomena, trancework, and altered states to provide a highly compelling and effective prescription for quick and lasting personal change.

According to Bandler, "trance" is at the very foundation of human experience. People are not simply in or out of trance, but are constantly moving from one trance to another. We have our work trances, our relationship trances, and our parenting trances. Some of these states are useful and appropriate; others are not. With his signature wit and contrarian approach to therapy, Bandler shows how anyone can reset and reprogram their problem behaviors to reach desired alternatives with lasting and life-altering results. With intriguing case studies, client dialogues, and more than thirty exercises, Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation, is an engaging, read for anyone, whether they are new to NLP, want to further their NLP training, or simply want to make a positive difference in their own lives.

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A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith. In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God--by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.

"The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian," Willard writes, "is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to [their] life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible." Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith."

Willard refutes this "fire escape" mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that His followers become His disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.

A Powerful, Thought-Provoking
Guide to Living the Life
Jesus Intends for Us

"My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. Very few people today find Jesus interesting as a person or of vital relevance to the course of their actual lives. He is not generally regarded as a real life personality who deals with real-life issues, but is thought to be concerned with some feathery realm other than the one we must deal with, and must deal with now."

"[A]ctual discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is, in our day, no longer thought of as in any way essential to faith in him. It is regarded as a costly option, a spiritual luxury, or possibly even as an evasion. Why bother with discipleship, it is widely thought, or, for that matter, with a conversational relationship with God? Let us get on with what we have to do."

"This book, then, presents discipleship to Jesus as the very heart of the gospel. The eternal life that begins with confidence in Jesus is a life in His present kingdom, now on earth and available to all. So the message of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer of his merits. Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of the faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate."

-- from The Divine Conspiracy

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In this book Peter Scazzero unveils what's wrong with our conventional means of "spiritual growth" and offers not only a model of spirituality that actually works, but seven steps to transformation that will help readers experience a faith changed with authenticity, contemplation and a hunger for God..
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Best-selling author Richard J. Foster offers a warm, compelling, and sensitive primer on prayer, helping us to understand, experience, and practice it in its many forms-from the simple prayer of beginning again to unceasing prayer. He clarifies the prayer process, answers common misconceptions, and shows the way into prayers of contemplation, healing, blessing, forgiveness, and rest.

Coming to prayer is like coming home, Foster says. "Nothing feels more right, more like what we are created to be and to do. Yet at the same time we are confronted with great mysteries. Who hasn't struggled with the puzzle of unanswered prayer? Who hasn't wondered how a finite person can commune with the infinite Creator of the universe? Who hasn't questioned whether prayer isn't merely psychological manipulation after all? We do our best, of course, to answer these knotty questions but when all is said and done, there is a sense in which these mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable . . . At such times we must learn to become comfortable with the mystery."

Foster shows how prayer can move us inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others. He leads us beyond questions to a deeper understanding and practice of prayer, bringing us closer to God, to ourselves, and to our community.

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We aren't born again to stay the way we are. But how many times have we looked around us in dismay at the lack of spiritual maturity in fellow believers? It is evident in the rising rate of divorces among Christian couples. We find it in the high percentages of Christians, even pastors, who regularly view pornography. And we face it each time a well-known leader in the Christian community is found in sexual sin or handling finances dishonestly. Perhaps you have struggled with your own character issues for years, even decades, to little avail.

There's good news. You can experience significant growth in your Christian walk, shed sinful habits, and increasingly take on the character of Christ. In Renovation of the Heart, best-selling author Dallas Willard calls it "the transformation of the spirit"––a divine process that "brings every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God or the kingdom of God." In the transformation of our spirits, we become apprentices of Jesus Christ.

Willard suggests that many Christians today are crying out, "Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart." If that is your heart's cry, this book is the tool to take you to the next level in your quest for true, inward Christlikeness..
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Exposing the impostor that lives in all of us, Brennan Manning helps readers accept their belovedness as a child of God..
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Eugene Peterson is convinced that the way we read the Bible is as important as that we read it. Do we read the Bible for information about God and salvation, for principles and "truths" that we can use to live better? Or do we read it in order to listen to God and respond in prayer and obedience?

The second part of Peterson’s momentous five-volume work on spiritual theology, Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms, as God’s revelation, and to live them as we read them. With warmth and wisdom Peterson offers greatly needed, down-to-earth counsel on spiritual reading. In these pages he draws readers into a fascinating conversation on the nature of language, the ancient practice of lectio divina, and the role of Scripture translations; included here is the "inside story" behind Peterson’s own popular Bible translation, The Message.

Countering the widespread practice of using the Bible for self-serving purposes, Peterson here serves readers with a nourishing entrée into the formative, life-changing art of spiritual reading.

Study Guide available..
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This workbook by Greg Ogden is a tool designed to help you follow the pattern of discipleship Jesus drew for us. Working through it will deepen your knowledge of essential Christian teaching and strengthen your faith.

Each week contains the following elements:

• a core truth presented in a question-answer format
• a memory verse and accompanying study
• a field-tested inductive Bible study
• a reading on the theme for the week
• questions to draw out key principles in the reading

This material is designed for groups of three. It has also been used successfully as an individual study program, a one-on-one discipling tool and small group curriculum.

Jesus had a big enough vision to think small. Focusing on a few did not limit his influence. Rather, it expanded it. Discipleship Essentials is designed to help us influence others as Jesus did by investing in a few.

This expanded edition includes a revised introduction and a study on stewardship.

Market/Audience

• Church leaders
• Christian laypeople
• Small group leaders

Features and Benefits

• New edition of a bestselling book
• Has the same pagination as the original edition for those who want to use their original copy in mentoring
• Revised introduction by the author
• Includes 25 sessions
• Includes a new study on stewardship at the back of the book
• Great for use in small groups, one on one, or in mentoring pairs or triads

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Price: $10.08 [Notify me when price goes down.]