Reading the Revolution...

Yesterday, I read through another book for my upcoming class on Spiritual Formation. This one, a team-written book by Dallas Willard and Don Simpson, is called The Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ's pattern for Spiritual Transformation.

Overall, I felt the book was easy to read, informative, and gave good ideas and tips for how to grow spiritually. It's also nice to be reading books that will help with my personal relationship with God AND influence my teaching at the church.

Here's the summary of the book from Navpress...

Heart, mind, body, social life, and soul. God is ready to transform every aspect of your life. Perhaps your spiritual life is not all you want it to be. Your sporadic successes, plateaus, and dry spells only lead to more frustration.
Dallas Willard believes the main reason we fail in our spiritual life is that we don't examine carefully the roles played by all five elements of our person: heart, mind, body, social life, and soul. Real change comes when we give each element thoughtful and prayerful exposure to God's transforming work.

In Revolution of Character, Dr. Willard enables you to dwell meditatively on each of the five elements, understand its role, train it in new patterns, and seek God's transforming power. This powerful, holistic approach will produce new ways of responding to life and will result in profoundly changed character.

I liked the book, and I thought the comments on social life and body were unique and helpful. It's one of those books that you wish you had time to go through the exercises at the end of each chapter. Several were great. This book even recommends itself for use on a spiritual one-day retreat or vacation.

Ironically, the next book I'm reading seems to take a shot at books like Revolution with commends like, "who has time for a spiritual retreat these days?"

True.

But I'd recommend Revolution of Character maybe for a small group to read through and discuss together, quite possibly in a group with new believers. However, if you are looking for a book that will be a little more engaging or challenging on Godly Character, click here.

Only 775 pages to go...