Most Popular Books by Richard Foster

Best-selling author Richard J. Foster offers a warm, compelling, and sensitive primer on prayer, helping us to understand, experience, and practice it in its many forms-from the simple prayer of beginning again to unceasing prayer. He clarifies the prayer process, answers common misconceptions, and shows the way into prayers of contemplation, healing, blessing, forgiveness, and rest. Coming to prayer is like coming home, Foster says. "Nothing feels more right, more like what we are created to be and to do. Yet at the same time we are confronted with great mysteries. Who hasn''t struggled with the puzzle of unanswered prayer? Who hasn''t wondered how a finite person can commune with the infinite Creator of the universe? Who hasn''t questioned whether prayer isn''t merely psychological manipulation after all? We do our best, of course, to answer these knotty questions but when all is said and done, there is a sense in which these mysteries remain unanswered and unanswerable . . . At such times we must learn to become comfortable with the mystery." Foster shows how prayer can move us inward into personal transformation, upward toward intimacy with God, and outward to minister to others. He leads us beyond questions to a deeper understanding and practice of prayer, bringing us closer to God, to ourselves, and to our community.

Nathan Foster has lived with the spiritual disciplines all his life, but has had to find his own unique path. As he sought - sometimes rebelliously - to develop habits that would enable him to live more like Jesus, he encountered problems both personal and universal. Gradually he discovered creative new ways to practice disciplines such as fasting, meditation and simplicity, to live as Jesus lived. With a foreword from Nathan''s father Richard, who provides a fresh introduction to each of the disciplines, The Making of an Ordinary Saint invites us to be formed into the likeness of Christ''s character.

“Scrupulously researched . . . An eloquent fan, Foster brings insight into Page’s recent revival as a sex symbol.” —Entertainment Weekly TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION UPDATED BY THE AUTHOR WITH A NEW EPILOGUE She has been called the most photographed model in history. From her modest beginnings in Nashville to her legacy as a cult figure, here is the true story of America’s iconic pinup queen, legendary Playboy centerfold Bettie Page—including her stormy marriages, her trial for attempted murder, and her decade-long isolation in a California mental institution. During the 1950s, Bettie set hearts ablaze with her killer curves and girl-next-door smile. Yet at the height of her popularity, with a promising acting career before her, she walked away. For more than thirty years, Bettie stayed hidden from the public eye, though she lived on in her fans’ memories, much like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. Journalist Richard Foster became the first reporter to contact Page during her long absence, and the first to tell her full story. Using interviews with those who knew her, and filled with uncommon knowledge and insights, The Real Bettie Page reveals both the fun flirt and fashion-forward counter-culture icon whose style continues to inspire today, as well as the intriguing and complex, flesh-and-blood woman behind her smiling photos. Includes classic and rare color and black-and-white photos

Turning conventional wisdom on its head, a Senior Partner and an Innovation Specialist from McKinsey & Company debunk the myth that high-octane, built-to-last companies can continue to excel year after year and reveal the dynamic strategies of discontinuity and creative destruction these corporations must adopt in order to maintain excellence and remain competitive. In striking contrast to such bibles of business literature as In Search of Excellence and Built to Last, Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan draw on research they conducted at McKinsey & Company of more than one thousand corporations in fifteen industries over a thirty-six-year period. The industries they examined included old-economy industries such as pulp and paper and chemicals, and new-economy industries like semiconductors and software. Using this enormous fact base, Foster and Kaplan show that even the best-run and most widely admired companies included in their sample are unable to sustain their market-beating levels of performance for more than ten to fifteen years. Foster and Kaplan''s long-term studies of corporate birth, survival, and death in America show that the corporate equivalent of El Dorado, the golden company that continually outperforms the market, has never existed. It is a myth. Corporations operate with management philosophies based on the assumption of continuity; as a result, in the long term, they cannot change or create value at the pace and scale of the markets. Their control processes, the very processes that enable them to survive over the long haul, deaden them to the vital and constant need for change. Proposing a radical new business paradigm, Foster and Kaplan argue that redesigning the corporation to change at the pace and scale of the capital markets rather than merely operate well will require more than simple adjustments. They explain how companies like Johnson and Johnson , Enron, Corning, and GE are overcoming cultural "lock-in" by transforming rather than incrementally improving their companies. They are doing this by creating new businesses, selling off or closing down businesses or divisions whose growth is slowing down, as well as abandoning outdated, ingrown structures and rules and adopting new decision-making processes, control systems, and mental models. Corporations, they argue, must learn to be as dynamic and responsive as the market itself if they are to sustain superior returns and thrive over the long term. In a book that is sure to shake the business world to its foundations, Creative Destruction, like Re-Engineering the Corporation before it, offers a new paradigm that will change the way we think about business.

Stop Breathe Listen Be Still In a world that moves too fast and places little value on quiet times, the practice of contemplative prayer offers rest to your soul and invites God''s presence into your life. This thoughtful book, inspired by the best-selling DVD of the same name, invites you into the joy and peace that can be found in the age-old practice of contemplative prayer and features writings from some of today''s most highly respected authors and speakers, including: • Max Lucado • Dr. Henry Cloud • Philip Yancey • Michelle McKinney Hammond • Richard Foster • Dallas Willard • Dr. Calvin Miller • Ken Gire In these pages you will be introduced to the practice of lectio divina, which simply means "sacred reading." Using Scripture and silence, you will learn to invite God''s presence and direction into your life through the thirty-one meditations in this beautifully illustrated book. You don''t have to be a scholar or a saint to experience contemplative prayer or enjoy God''s divine companionship. As you walk through these thirty-one days, you will grow daily into a deeper, more satisfying prayer life with God. Open the book. Be still. Find rest for your soul. Compiled by Amy and Judge Reinhold.

First of all I am a born again christian. Called into evangelism by God. My name is Richard Foster and I am a retired businessman and evangelist. I have pastored over the course of my life and I feel that God has given me a mission. My questioning mind has inspired many original programs and teachings as well as the inspiration for this book. As a retired businessman I have had to make many decisions and choices over the years in my business. I can now look back with hindsight and ask myself all those, what ifs as they would pertain to my life today. That is really the core of our story. Its about the choices we make and how those choices affect us immediately and all along our life journey. The Loneliest Shepherd deal with choices and how making bad choices can effect just about every aspect of your life. At the birth of Jesus I wondered who it was among the shepherds that had to stay behind and watch the sheep. I wondered how that might effect that persons life, what his life might turn out to be like and where he might end up. While the story is purely fi ctional, I have taken true accounts from the Bible and created a what if story around them to help put into perspective just how criticle making the right choices really are. My prayer is that this encounter with David will cause you think more deeply about life than you ever have before.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.