Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith

Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith

by Richard J. Foster

The author of the bestselling celebration of discipline explores the great traditions of Christian spirituality and their role in spiritual renewal today. The author of the bestselling celebration of discipline explores the great traditions of Christian spirituality and their role in spiritual renewal today.

In this landmark work, Foster examines the "streams of living water" –– the six dimensions of faith and practice that define Christian tradition. He lifts up the enduring character of each tradition and shows how a variety of practices, from individual study and retreat to disciplines of service and community, are all essential elements of growth and maturity. Foster examines the unique contributions of each of these traditions and offers as examples the inspiring stories of faithful people whose lives defined each of these "streams."

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Paperback, 424 pages

Published November 27th 2001 by HarperSanFrancisco (first published January 1st 1989)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, church, religion, nonfiction, christian living, history, christian

Book Quotes

“True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. — William Penn”

― Richard J. Foster

“If we are a people rich in social relationships, we are rich indeed. Whenever we develop significant friendships with those who are not like us culturally, we become broader, wiser persons.”

― Richard J. Foster

“You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!”

― Richard J. Foster

“We simply cannot consider the earth apart from Christ’s footsteps imprinted upon it.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Little children, love one another.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The astonishing new reality in this mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignly God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time.”

― Richard J. Foster

“God, what is man’s best gift to mankind? To be beautiful of soul and then let people see into your soul.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.—Thomas Kelly”

― Richard J. Foster

“Jesus did not all of a sudden one day start spouting nice sayings about God. No, when he began his public ministry, he was speaking out of a life that had been tested and tried.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29b). That is a good question. The common view of that day was that “neighbor” meant “cultural equivalent”: the person who looks like me, dresses like me, thinks like me. To explode that common view of neighbor, Jesus tells the now-famous story of a Samaritan — someone who is definitely not the Jew’s cultural equivalent — who showed compassion on a beaten and broken Jew, the avowed enemy of the Samaritan. That’s it! Neighbor, says Jesus, is “nigh-bor,” the person near us, the person in need. Jesus refuses to put walls around the word neighbor. No national heritage, no racial origin, no ethnic background, no barriers of class or culture can separate us from our neighbor.”

― Richard J. Foster

“We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.”

― Richard J. Foster

“corporate “confession of guilt.” “The church,” he declared, “confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the”

― Richard J. Foster

“we simply must understand that God is seeking not to improve us but to transform us. C. S. Lewis writes, “The goal towards which [God] is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.”53”

― Richard J. Foster

“So the evangel, the good news of the gospel, is that we enter into life in Christ as his disciple right now. It is not that we believe now, enrolling as his disciple at some later point if we are so inclined (as if it were possible to believe without being his disciple). Believing in Jesus and discipleship to Jesus are part of the same action.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Remember, we are calling people not merely to accept a set of beliefs about Jesus that will somehow trip the divine lever and get them into heaven when they die. Oh, no! We are calling people to turn to Jesus as their life. We are inviting people to believe in Jesus by becoming his disciples, and as his disciples (or apprentices) to enroll in his school of living. Thus people become trained in the Way, increasingly taking into themselves Jesus’ hopes, dreams, longings, habits, and abilities. This is how they learn “to obey everything that I have commanded you.” There simply is no other way.”

― Richard J. Foster

“No hard figures are available on how much was actually paid out or how many Friends complied with the request of their Yearly Meeting. For those who did pay their slaves, it was common to use the yearly wage of the day. We do know that one Mr. F. Buxton, in an appeal before the British House of Commons to abolish slavery, said that it had cost North Carolina Friends fifty thousand pounds to release their slaves.14 For some southern Friends emancipation of their slaves meant financial bankruptcy; for many, if not most, it meant eventual migration to the North.”

― Richard J. Foster

“Susanna prayed, “Help me, Lord, to remember that religion is not to be confined to the church, or closet, nor exercised only in prayer and meditation, but that everywhere I am in Thy presence. So may my every word and action have a moral content. … May all the happenings of my life prove useful and beneficial to me. May all things instruct me and afford me an opportunity of exercising some virtue and daily learning and growing toward Thy likeness. … Amen.”

― Richard J. Foster

Richard J. Foster

Richard J. Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. He has been a professor at Friends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides in Denver, Colorado. He earned his undergraduate degree at George Fox University in Oregon and his Doctor of Pastoral Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Foster is best known for his 1978 book Celebration of Discipline, which examines the inward disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation, and study in the Christian life, the outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. It has sold over one million copies. It was named by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the twentieth century.
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