Logo

 

Banner Image:   Baptist-Times-banner-2000x370-
Template Mode:   Baptist Times
Icon
    Post     Tweet

Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality by Tim Stead

Must-read book about making space for God

Mindfulness and Christian SpirMindfulness and Christian Spirituality: Making Space for God
by Tim Stead
SPCK
ISBN 978-0-281-07486-0
Reviewed by Shaun Lambert

Reading Tim Stead’s new book Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality is a bit like listening to bird song before dawn. As you listen to the overall song different voices start to emerge and a sense of peace begins to alight on you.

Tim, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Oxford where C.S. Lewis used to worship and an accredited mindfulness teacher. Mindfulness is something of a wardrobe into different lands more fully alive, and Tim conveys its beauty and contribution to wholeness and wellbeing.
 
In part one Tim begins with the well-known tune of mindfulness in its clinical and mainstream settings. The much less well-known tune of mindfulness in the Christian tradition also makes an appearance. And weaving in and out of both we hear something of Tim’s own journey into mindfulness.
 
In part two of the book, ‘from believing to knowing,’ he outlines how mindfulness has helped him reflect on the nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Some of these insights such as God as now and not just one and love might help re-orientate people’s spiritual life much more into the present moment, a key element of mindfulness and Christian spirituality.
 
His insight into Jesus as the embodied one might also help people turn back towards their bodies as ‘the only place we can or will ever experience and know God’. That Jesus models wakefulness for us, is also often forgotten within Christian spirituality.
 
The Holy Spirit is the one who helps us makes transformation real and possible. We are divided and fractured and as we develop our quality of attention through mindfulness we can move to a place of integration and wholeness that begins to reflect the reality of God as we come to know Him.
 
The book’s strap line beautifully sums up how mindfulness helps us in our spirituality, through it we are ‘making space for God’. In part three which Tim calls ‘from doing to being’ he outlines some key elements of Christian spirituality, such as knowing God’s presence, trusting God, knowing God’s will, finding peace, inner healing, prayer and worship, practising love, reconnecting with nature, daily living – and how mindfulness helps us cultivate our own spiritual garden and the songs within.
 
Some of the paragraphs in this section are among the best I have read anywhere. Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality is a book that demonstrates the plasticity of mindfulness as our God-given universal capacity for attention and awareness, as Tim develops meditative variations drawing on scripture and the contemplative tradition.

As we take up the practice let’s add our voices to the tune of mindfulness in the Christian tradition, and pray that it becomes much more widely known, so that, as Professor Mark Williams says of the book, we don’t just read it in a day, we take it to heart – so that ‘it will last a lifetime.’
 


Shaun Lambert is Senior Minister of Stanmore Baptist Church and currently researching a PhD project in mindfulness at the London School of Theology. He is also the author of A Book of Sparks – a Study in Christian MindFullness, and Putting on the Wakeful One - Attuning to the Spirit of Jesus through Watchfulness

Baptist Times, 29/04/2016
    Post     Tweet
My Big Story Bible by Tom Wright 
'Wright is retelling the stories in an accessible way in something closer to the whole Bible, with his inclusions of the books of the prophets and the New Testament letters'
Clever Cub Forgives a Friend, and Invites Someone New, by Bob Hartman  
Latest titles in series which takes the world of the child seriously and then tries to choose appropriate stories from the Bible to address their experiences - relevant and readable
The Hardest Problem: God, Evil and Suffering by Rupert Shortt 
'Not only helpful to Christians but worth passing on to thoughtful unbelievers who find the problem of evil and suffering an obstacle to belief'
Heroes or Villains by Jeannie Kendall 
'A gem of a book, thoughtfully and insightfully exploring the qualities we share with Bible characters'
Poverty, Riches and Wealth by Kris Vallotton
A book which makes you think with sections you might disagree with - but the golden thread that you are wealthy in proportion to your generosity, not according to your riches - is an excellent, Biblical principle
Lydia by Paula Gooder 
'Thoroughly recommended, not just as a historical novel, but also as a useful reference book kept close to the regularly-used commentaries'
     Reviews 
    Posted: 01/03/2024
    Posted: 22/09/2023