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After my book, Celebration of Discipline, was published (Please, understand I do not know how God can use  squiggles on a paper to do the transforming heart work of the Holy Spirit in people. That is an utter mystery to me.) Anyway, after Celebration of Discipline was published people were so gracious and so encouraging and they would invite me to come and share with them about the Christian spiritual disciplines. And so I did. What an honor and privilege that was. It gave me the opportunity to be among Christians of many denominations, of various geographic areas and racial and ethnic backgrounds. Wonderful people. Good people. Sincere people. And I saw many excellent things everywhere I went. But during those years of travel I also saw three huge areas of spiritual deficiency.

First, I saw that people were trying rather than training. They wanted to do what was right, and they tried hard to do what was right. But they failed again and again because they did not understand the importance of spiritual training so that there could be built within them deeply ingrained habits of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self control. They did not understand those powerful words of the Apostle Paul, "Exercise yourself unto godliness." That word "exercise"-- "exersidzo"-- has as its background the Greek gymnasium where the Greek athletes would train for the games. I mean, just suppose I tried running a marathon race without any training. Now, I might try very, very hard but there is just no way. Without training I would never finish . . . and believe you me in my present condition it would take a lot of training! But that is exactly what people are doing in the spiritual life. They are trying without training. It's not their fault really. It is just that no one has shown them how to train in this area of life.

Then second, I saw that people were scattered rather than gathered. Now, this is just a sociological fact of our day. Even in our churches. If someone seriously intends to be a disciple of Jesus Christ---that is, taking up an overall way of living that conforms in its general outline to the way Jesus lived while he was here in the flesh---they will find themselves alone and isolated. That simply is not what most people signed up for when they joined the church. So we are today a scattered people rather than a gathered people. And this is terribly unfortunate, because we were never meant to live the spiritual life alone. God's intention is that we have the support and nurture and loving accountability of other disciples of Jesus. So I saw that people were scattered rather than gathered.

And, third, I saw that the vision of people was myopic rather than synoptic. They understood only a thin slice of all that God intended for them. Now, frankly this is the result of the way Christianity has developed in our day. People are converted and nurtured in certain traditions: social justice or charismatic or evangelical, for example. And those traditions have genuinely given a certain substance to their lives. But those same traditions have also often kept them from the insights of other great streams of life and faith. So their vision is partial, it is myopic. They cannot see all that God intends for them.

So here were these three great areas of deficiency: •• People were trying rather than training •• They were scattered rather than gathered •• Their vision was myopic rather than synoptic

I saw these things and I can't tell you how discouraging this was to me. These good people, honest people, sincere people were like sheep without a shepherd. And it led me to a period were I stopped all speaking and all writing. When I entered this time I did not know if I would ever write or speak again. I actually thought I would not. As it turned out this period lasted for about 18 months. And during that time I tried to listen carefully to God.

•• What could be done to overcome these crippling deficiencies of trying and being scattered and myopia?

•• What could be done to help people to train in the spiritual life?

•• What could be done to see people gather in little clusters of loving nurturing accountability?

•• What could be done to help people catch a synoptic vision of all the great streams of life and faith throughout the history of the people of God?

•• What could be done? What could be done?

At RENOVARÉ we share something of what came out of that eighteen month period of listening and how it has developed since that time. We articulate a balanced vision of life and faith. We seek to give a practical strategy for spiritual growth. And we work hard to strengthen your hand as, day in and day out, you and as you help others to, in those great words of the Apostle Paul, "attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God; to come to maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness Christ."

I'll conclude by sharing with you this one thing that I saw during those months of silence, and it is something that I see to this day . . . even though it still feels like I am peering through a glass darkly.

•• I see a great people to be gathered in the power of the Lord.

•• I see a people who combine eschatology with social action; the transcendent lordship of Jesus with the suffering servant Messiah.

•• I see a people of crown and cross, of courageous action and unselfish love.

•• I see a people who know in daily experience both the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.

•• I see a people who understand God's everlasting rule, not only imminent on the horizon, but already coming to birth in our midst.

•• I see a people I tell you . . . I see a people

•• I see a rural pastor from Texas embracing an urban priest from New Jersey and together praying for the peace of the world. I see a people.

•• I see evangelists and social activists weeping together over the spiritually lost and the plight of the poor. I see a people.

•• I see contemplatives and Pentecostals together offering up a sacrifice of praise. I see a people.

•• I see unschooled laborers and sophisticated theologians together confessing, "worthy is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world."

•• I see a people . . . I see a people

Friends, today Jesus Christ—our ever living Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend—is gathering to himself an incendiary fellowship of the Spirit: . . . of every race and nation . . . . . . of every age and gender. . . .  . . of every class and category . . . . . . an all-inclusive community of loving people who are blending hearts and hands and minds and voices declaring, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."

Richard J. Foster teaches Spiritual Formation at Asuza Pacific University and is the founder of Renovare, a small group movement committed to the renewal of the church.

"Epilogue" from Streams of Living Water by Richard J. Foster, (c) 1998 by HarperSanFrancisco. Reprinted by permission.

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