Seven Ancient Worship Disciplines from Richard Foster's Timeless Wisdom
We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of Richard Foster’s seminal work on spiritual disciplines. Celebration of Discipline has, since its release, sold millions of copies and impacted countless lives. Christianity Today called it one of the top ten most important books of the twentieth century. It has left an indelible mark on the church of the modern era and will likely be one of the books that survives the sifting of history to impact many future generations.
In Celebration of Discipline, Foster sought to revive many ancient practices of the church to a modern audience. He divides the book into three areas: The Inward Disciplines, the Outward Disciplines, and the Corporate Disciplines.
All are excellent looks at practices that can quicken the heart of the disciple to their Master. Inward practices like prayer, meditation, and fasting transform us from the inside out. Outward practices like simplicity, solitude, and service can guide our spiritual direction.
But it’s in the third section, the Corporate Disciplines, that we find practices that we should apply as the body of Christ. One of these corporate practices is Worship.
We’re going to look at a few principles Foster touches on that can help us experience spiritual richness and joy by embracing the ancient discipline of worship.
Why Does Worship Matter?
Before we look at these ancient practices, let me ask a simple question. Some may ask, ‘Why does worship even matter? What about those who feel intimidated by singing or don’t even enjoy music? Isn't it enough to know God through His word?’
The simple answer to this question is ‘No.’ Though it is vital to know and love God (we can’t worship without that), we are commanded in the Scripture to also worship Him. Why?
Foster answers that question at the beginning of the chapter. “To worship is to experience Reality, to touch Life.” Though we are logical and rational creatures, we are also experiential creatures living in time and space. We experience with our hearts and souls, not just our minds. For us to experience the fullness of any relationship, we must have encounters with that person, not merely know about them.
When my wife and I were dating, we lived 5,000 miles apart—she was in Croatia, and I was here in the States. Long-distance calls were expensive back then, so we mostly wrote. A lot. For a year or so, we exchanged thousands of pages of email. Through those letters, we came to know each other deeply—our hearts, our thoughts, our passions and dreams, even our frustrations and failures.
But we didn’t get to experience each other. We eventually got married, and I brought her back to the States. We now have three kids and have built a life together. There’s been love and laughter, pain and sorrow, tears of joy and tears of loss. Just last week, we lost our beloved dog. We all gathered around her before we took her to the vet to put her down. The family, crying tears of soul-deep anguish, said our forever goodbyes. It was a very painful, but also incredibly precious, even holy, moment.
Imagine how different it would be if I had never married my wife, and we had never had a life together. Imagine that I just took those letters and read and reread them. They do, after all, contain her heart and thinking, perspectives, and passions. They are, in a way, ‘her.’
We all realize that though the letters ‘contain’ her, they are not her. Even if I memorized the letters, organized them, put them in order, marked chapter numbers, and added verse numbers so I could remember key passages, I would still be missing something vital. Letters cannot replace a person.
I would never know the sound of her laughter, the warmth of her salty tears on my face as I hugged her to comfort her in loss, the serenity of a hand-in-hand sunset, the smell of her hair. I need to be present with her to truly know those things. Thoughts can never replace touch. We creatures need both to fully experience someone.
That is what worship does for us, in part. We get to experience God in a way that simply reading His word or books about Him can’t convey, as vital as that is. We get to ‘taste and see’ that He is good. We get to come to Him with our burdens and experience His rest. We get to embrace peace that transcends understanding. As Jonathan Edwards said in Religious Affections, “True religion is… the enjoyment of God… This enjoyment is the happiness of the soul.” In corporate worship, we get to enjoy God together with our brothers and sisters, filling our hearts to the full as we draw more near to Him, together.
Worship is vital to our spiritual lives, but how can we deepen and enrich our worship experience?
Seven Disciplines of the Ancients
Foster shares seven disciplines that the ancients who went before us practiced that can enhance our worship so that we may worship Him more fully in Spirit and Truth.
Foster begins with what Brother Lawrence described as the Practice of the Presence of God—a discipline rooted in continual awareness of God's nearness. It’s learning to see Him in all things, in every moment and circumstance. It’s taking joy in His nearness, tuning our hearts to hear His voice wherever we are. It’s the essence of praying without ceasing—it’s recognizing His fingerprints in all aspects of daily life.
Second is cultivating different experiences of worship. Of course, the bible calls us to corporate worship. We are to gather together to worship Him. We can also worship in smaller groups. In circles rather than rows. Often, my kids have friends over, and they worship together. It’s a sweet, sweet sound to the Lord, and precious to them. And, of course, we can worship privately. Not just on our knees. But, on our back deck having coffee, driving to work, or watching the sun rise over the ocean.
Third is preparing to worship. In a sense, it’s worshiping before you come to worship. Getting our hearts in the right place to worship before we arrive at the service. On Sunday mornings, so many of us rush to get ready and out the door on time. We may leave a little late and rush through traffic, stressed. Then we rush to park and rush into an already started service and stress trying to find a seat. Then, we somehow expect to magically be transformed in our hearts; to be able to ‘click the switch’ and deeply engage in worship. What would our experience be if we instead had a quiet morning spent in prayer, reading the Word, and connecting with the Lord? Thanking Him for Who He is and what He’s done in history and our lives. Maybe even arriving a little early to set our minds on Him. Would our worship experience be different?
Fourth is simply ‘letting go.’ Let go of our agenda. Let go of our preferences. Instead, be prepared to let God come and fellowship with us. To touch and transform us. To let Him lead.
Number five is cultivating a holy dependency. It’s the next part of step four. It’s not just letting go but giving Him full control. Recognize that we are creatures and He is the creator. And being in hopeful expectation that He will come and ‘sup’ with us. It’s remembering that He is not compelled to come at our mere bidding, but that He is Sovereign. As Foster says, we are “utterly and completely dependent on God for anything significant to happen.”
Sixth is not allowing ourselves to get distracted. This one, maybe more than all the others, is the bane of modern people. We are so easily distracted. Even as you read this article (for those who actually were able to focus long enough to get to point six!), you were probably tempted several times to distraction. We are programmed by everything in our society to have short attention spans and always need to have something new and exciting to capture our attention constantly. That’s why this may be the most challenging of these disciplines to master. But we must remember what it is that we’re doing in worship, and even if by mere volition alone, force ourselves to keep focus. We are coming into the active presence of the King of the universe, that great and terrible Sovereign who holds the keys to death and hades. But He’s also our humble Savior, who by His blood bought us access to the throne room of heaven. We not only owe Him our eternal life, but we also need to recognize the extraordinary privilege we have coming into His presence, even if it’s contained within a very ordinary worship service.
Lastly, worship sometimes calls for a sacrifice of praise, just as Hebrews 13 reminds us. There are seasons when worship is hard—when life weighs heavy, when sin makes us feel distant from God, when our hearts are weary, distracted, or even frustrated with the Church. But true worship isn’t dictated by our circumstances or emotions. It is an act of surrender—entering the presence of the King, who is also our loving Father. He invites us near and longs for our hearts to treasure Him above all else. He is worthy—always. And in offering Him the worship He deserves, we find what our hearts truly long for: the fullness of joy in His presence.
Conclusion
In a world full of noise, distraction, and distance, the disciplines Foster outlines aren’t burdens—they’re invitations. Invitations to draw near. To know God not only through songs on Sunday but in the stillness of Monday, the chaos of Wednesday, and the silence of Friday night. Worship is more than music—it’s the daily orientation of our hearts toward the One who is always present. Let us become worshipers who don’t just lead songs, but live lives of holy attention—people who carry the Presence and practice it with joy.
