The Spiritual Disciplines: A Plain List and How to Begin

The spiritual disciplines are practices, such as prayer, scripture reading, fasting, solitude, worship and service, through which Christians make room for God to shape them. The best-known modern lists are Richard Foster’s twelve disciplines (inward, outward and corporate) and Dallas Willard’s disciplines of abstinence and engagement. Neither list is the last word. Both are attempts to name what Christians have always done.

Paul tells Timothy to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7). Jesus assumes his followers will give, pray and fast, and teaches them to do it in secret (Matthew 6:1-18). The first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The disciplines are the church’s long reflection on that kind of devotion.

Discipline, not earning

One thing first. The disciplines do not make God love you more, and they are not a ladder to climb. Christians across traditions, Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, agree that we are saved by grace. The disciplines are ways of placing ourselves where grace can work. Foster calls them a means of receiving God’s grace; Willard compares them to an athlete’s training, which makes possible what effort in the moment cannot.

Different traditions use different words. Wesley spoke of “means of grace.” Catholic and Orthodox writers speak of ascetic practice (from the Greek askesis, training). Reformed Christians often speak of the ordinary means of grace: the word, the sacraments and prayer. The overlap is larger than the differences.

Richard Foster: inward, outward and corporate

Richard Foster, a Quaker writer, published Celebration of Discipline in 1978. It has shaped evangelical and mainline thinking ever since. He groups twelve disciplines in three sets of four.

The inward disciplines

• Meditation: attentive, unhurried listening to God, often through a passage of scripture.
• Prayer: speaking with God, and learning to pray for others.
• Fasting: going without food, or something else, for a time, for spiritual purposes.
• Study: careful attention to scripture and to good books, so the mind is formed.

The outward disciplines

• Simplicity: an inner freedom that shows itself in a less cluttered, less acquisitive life.
• Solitude: time alone with God, and the inner quiet that can travel with you.
• Submission: laying down the need to have your own way.
• Service: ordinary, often hidden acts of help for others.

The corporate disciplines

• Confession: acknowledging sin to God, and where wise, to another believer (James 5:16).
• Worship: responding together to God’s presence.
• Guidance: seeking God’s leading together, not only alone.
• Celebration: joy, which Foster places at the heart of the whole list.

Dallas Willard: abstinence and engagement

Dallas Willard, a philosopher and Southern Baptist, published The Spirit of the Disciplines in 1988. He sorts the disciplines differently, by what they do. Disciplines of abstinence mean going without something good for a time, so that its hold on us is loosened. Disciplines of engagement mean taking up something, so that we are drawn into God’s life and the lives of others.

Disciplines of abstinence

• Solitude
• Silence
• Fasting
• Frugality
• Chastity
• Secrecy (doing good without being seen, Matthew 6:3-4)
• Sacrifice

Disciplines of engagement

• Study
• Worship
• Celebration
• Service
• Prayer
• Fellowship
• Confession
• Submission

Willard did not present his list as complete, and neither did Foster. Both are useful because they show balance: if every discipline you keep is one of engagement, you may need some quiet and going without; if every one is inward, you may need others.

Other disciplines worth knowing

The church’s practice is wider than any single list. Some others many Christians keep:

• Fixed-hour prayer, such as the Daily Office of morning and evening prayer, in the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox traditions among others.
• Self-examination, such as Ignatius of Loyola’s daily examen.
• Breath prayer and the Jesus Prayer, from the Eastern tradition; see the guide to breath prayer.
• Sabbath, a regular day of rest (Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:27).
• Keeping the church year, letting the seasons of the church year shape prayer and fasting.
• Generosity, regular, planned giving (2 Corinthians 9:7).
• Accountability, giving an honest account to a few others; see covenant discipleship.

How to begin

Start smaller than you think

Reading a list like this can produce a burst of ambition. Resist it. Choose one or two disciplines you can keep on a busy, ordinary day. For most people that means a short time with scripture and prayer, perhaps ten minutes. You can add more once those are settled.

Pair an engagement with an abstinence

Following Willard, it helps to keep one discipline of each kind. A short daily reading and prayer, say, with a weekly fast from your phone for an evening. The going-without makes room for the taking-up.

Write it down

A few lines on paper make it easier to remember what you meant to do and to notice when it has slipped. That is all a rule of life is: the disciplines you have chosen, written plainly.

Keep them with others

The disciplines were never meant to be a private self-improvement project. Most of the classic lists include corporate practices, and even the solitary ones last longer when a few friends know about them. A small accountability group or a single accountability partner makes a large difference.

Expect to fail, and begin again

You will miss days. Every tradition of Christian practice expects this. The response is not guilt but returning: tomorrow, begin again.

A modest first season

If you want something concrete, here is one way to spend a first season of six or eight weeks. Adjust it to your tradition and your circumstances.

• Daily: ten minutes in the morning with a psalm or a short passage from a gospel, read slowly, followed by prayer for the day ahead. A few minutes in the evening to look back over the day.
• Weekly: worship with your church, and one evening without screens, given to rest, reading or time with people you love.
• Once in the season: a half day of solitude and silence, somewhere you will not be interrupted. A walk, a quiet church or a borrowed room will do.
• With others: one honest conversation a week or a fortnight about how it is going.

At the end of the season, sit down and ask what helped and what did not. Keep the first, drop the second, and perhaps add one new practice. Over years, this slow pattern of trying, reviewing and adjusting does more than any single burst of effort. The early church spoke of this as perseverance; Hebrews calls it running “with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

How Ordo helps

Ordo is an iPhone app for keeping a rule of life with a few people. Your group writes its rule together in six parts (scripture, prayer, reflection, absence, accountability areas and review), which maps closely onto the disciplines: absence is where the disciplines of abstinence live.

Each day asks three small things: a written reflection, a response to the day’s scripture and a short check-in, about ten minutes. Reflections are revealed only when everyone has written. Ordo follows the church year, includes the Daily Office and a breath prayer, and has no streaks, badges or guilt notifications. It is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist.