One practical warning before anything else, because it will cost you money otherwise.
This listing is the Kindle edition of a journal. A Spiritual Formation Journal is a book you write in. Most of its pages are deliberately blank. Buying it as an ebook gets you the prompts and the structure with nowhere to put your answers, which defeats the entire object. If you want this, buy the paperback.
What it is
A guided journal by Jana Rea with Richard J. Foster, published by HarperSanFrancisco in 1996 as a Renovaré resource.
Its organising idea comes from Foster’s work: that the Christian church has developed five distinct streams of practice, and that most of us live in one and are malnourished in the other four. The journal walks through all five, a contemplative or prayer-filled life, a holiness or virtuous life, a charismatic or Spirit-empowered life, a social justice or compassionate life, and an evangelical or Word-centred life, and asks you to examine your own life against each.
It is arranged in weekly sections, with quotations, questions, evaluation exercises, and worksheets for a group working through it together.
Why the five-stream frame is worth your time
It is uncomfortable in a productive way. A man from a Word-centred background will find the contemplative weeks foreign; a man from a charismatic background will find the holiness weeks slow. The journal’s premise is that the discomfort is the diagnosis, and it is hard to argue with once you are in it.
Foster and Renovaré write ecumenically, drawing on Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant sources across the traditions. Nothing in the journal touches the core convictions we hold about the gospel or the authority of Scripture. But it is broader in its sources than a lot of evangelical material, and readers who prefer a narrower diet should know that going in.
What we removed
A quotation presented as coming from the journal and a testimonial from an unnamed user. Neither could be verified, and both are gone.
Limits
It is from 1996 and has not been meaningfully updated. The design is dated, and some of the framing assumes a small-group culture that was more common then.
It also demands real work. This is not a devotional you can do in five minutes over coffee; the evaluation exercises expect written answers and honest ones. A man who will not actually write in it should not buy it, and a good number of copies get bought and left blank.
And a journal is not teaching. It gives you the questions, not the answers. If you are looking for someone to explain the spiritual disciplines to you, read Foster’s Celebration of Discipline first and come back to this afterwards.
Who it is for
Someone who already reads and prays regularly, feels lopsided about it, and is willing to spend several months writing about why. Best used with two or three other men working the same weeks and comparing notes.
A Spiritual Formation Journal on Amazon (this link is the Kindle edition; buy the print copy if you intend to use it)