Streams of Living Water Book

Streams of Living Water is Richard J. Foster's roundup of six great traditions of Christian spiritual practice. His essays on spirituality--contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice, evangelical, and incarnational--are grounded in straightforward profiles of biblical and modern characters whom Foster considers exemplars of these traditions. (The prophet Amos and the Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, for example, are featured in the chapter on social justice.) Each chapter ends with a bit of advice about how readers can cultivate new aspects of spiritual life and keep these Christian traditions alive: "Take a bath instead of a shower. Waste time for God," Foster writes, in his chapter on the contemplative tradition. Foster doesn't really break new ground in Streams of Living Water--he's written about most of these spiritual disciplines elsewhere--but this book is a useful and engaging introduction to a fairly broad range of Christian spiritual practices. --Michael Joseph Gross