christianity

We used this book for my very first seminary class, and it has served to set the tone for my entire seminary experience. This book is one of those very rare finds, that you wish would be infinite in length because both the content and feeling of the book leaves you wanting more.

Bass and her team of contributors have managed to speak uniformly in diversity -- it is evident there was much conversation going on here. The book is divided into chapters devoted to particular practices of faith (as opposed to practices of religion); faith practices can be religious practices, and vice versa (in fact, one hopes!) but this volume is written broadly enough to appeal to a wide range of 'faithful' readers, and indeed, to those who are looking for a faith-full way of acting and being.

Chapters are devoted to such topics as singing, hospitality, illness, discernment; I cannot think of a major life topic or event that isn't covered here. The writing and reflections are personal and broad-based simultaneously, a rare achievement.

This book would make an excellent guide for a spiritual workshop; indeed, our course, entitled 'Spirituality, Autobiography & Ministry' is intended at our seminary to give a divers collection of people an introduction into ways of examining their own practices. I was fortunate enough to be a teaching assistant for this course during different years of seminary (and thus got to use the books several times, with different groups of people).

Currently the Practicing Our Faith project is developing separate texts on each of the topics covered by chapters in this book, so groups that use this as a base text for spirituality groups can choose which areas to develop, and stay within the overall culture of this text.

I cannot praise this book too highly. There is a genuine spirituality that permeates the book and expresses itself so well to the reader who devotes attention to the practices.

A searcher of many years, this book kinda popped out of the shelf at me. My biggest peeve with Christianity: Sunday Christians, that is people who only act Christian one day a week. This book gives me hope that ALL people claiming to be Christian can learn how to live a Christ like life. There is truly a piece of mind that comes with this books. Practicing Yoga everyday gave me a piece of mind, but with these simple suggestions for daily living, my joy has been doubled!

We are using this book currently for a class at my seminary entitled Spirituality, Autobiography & Ministry.

The care and depth of thought that permeates this book is apparent from the first pages, and it has been a struggle to resist the urge to "read ahead" of the rest of the class in this book.

While the chapters are written by different individuals, it is apparent that they have a common understanding and it is quite an achievement that they speak in this book with a common voice.

If you read no other book this year, read this one!