In a culture reeling from the effects of runaway spending, the choice to live more simply can be deeply gratifying. Learn ways to encourage and support simple living in your faith community.

To learn more, click on Approaches to Simple Living. Then, check out the basic and in-depth resources listed below!

SPIRITUALITY : Simple Living 

Addicted to Hurry: Spiritual Strategies for Slowing Down (Book)
Kirk Byron Jones, Author.  Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2003.
Diagnosing our culture’s addiction to speed and then offering strategies for slowing down, this book is written in simple, clear prose that is in itself a savory experience of slowing down.

At Home in the World: A Rule of Life for the Rest of Us (Book)
Margaret Guenther, Author.  Church Publishing Incorporated, 2006.
Those who aspire to be more open to God are encouraged to develop a personal rule of life based on monastic rule. To aid this development, Guenther includes historical and scriptural references, personal memoir, and practical suggestions.

Wrestling with Grace: A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life (Book)
Robert Colin Morris, Author.  Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2003.
Wrestling with Grace is a good sourcebook for leaders wanting to help their congregants develop healthy behaviors for growing spiritually within a busy and demanding life.

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (Book)
Thomas H. Naylor, John de Graaf, David Wann, Authors.  San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2001.
Calling "affluenza" a "disease," the authors discuss the diseases three facets (symptoms, causes, and treatment), and provide a strong vehicle for dialogue about our values, our consumer decisions, and our future.

Alternatives for Simple Living (Organization)
The stated mission of Alternatives for Simple Living is to "equip people of faith to challenge consumerism, live justly, and celebrate responsibly."

Center for a New American Dream (Organization)
With its goal of shifting our cultural emphases from buying and consuming to fulfillment and sustainability, the Center for a New American Dream works with individuals and organizations to conserve the environment and counter commercialization.

Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating (Book)
L. Shannon Jung, Author.  Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004.
Food for Life presents a cornucopia of ideas about food and how they relate to God and God’s created. Put another way: the book explores how one creation of God uses or misuses (celebrates or abuses) another creation of God.

The High Price of Materialism (Book)
Tim Kasser, Author.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
Tim Kasser posits that an increase of money and material goods does not translate into greater happiness or psychological health for those living above the poverty line. In other words, the wealthy are no happier than the rest of us.

Living from the Center: Spirituality in an Age of Consumerism (Book)
Jay McDaniel, Author.  St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2000.
Longing for a universe that lives more spiritually in the face of current consumerism, Jay McDaniel advocates for "living from the center," moment by moment, with openness to God.

Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives (Book)
Richard A. Swenson, Author.  Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 1992.
Arguing that we are suffering a diminishing reserve of personal resources relative to what is demanded of us, Richard Swenson encourages us to re-center our lives by reining in the emotional, physical, financial, and time demands we endure.

Money & Faith: The Search for Enough (Book)
Michael Schut, Editor.  Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2009.
Michael Schut assembles the voices of two dozen writers—including his own and those of Walter Brueggemann and Henri Nouwen—to help us examine our lives and faith through the lens of our relationship with money.

The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (Book)
Juliet B. Schor, Author.  New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1998.
Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American provides a detailed view of the earning and consuming trends of Americans from the 1970s to the present.

Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, And Delight in Our Busy Lives (Book)
Wayne Muller, Author.  New York, NY: Bantam, 1999.
Perhaps one of the most difficult practices for the modern American believer is keeping the Sabbath. Muller advocates for the commandment to observe the Sabbath as a pivotal aspect of life.

Saint Benedict on the Freeway: A Rule of Life for the 21st Century (Book)
Corinne Ware, Author.  Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001.
Adapting the monastic hours of prayer to modern experience, this book explores how we might live daily life with a more profound and ongoing awareness of God's presence.

Simple Living Network (Web Resource)
This online resource is for those seeking to live more simply and responsibly. It provides an online newsletter, an events schedule, links to discussion groups, and a resource directory of related organizations, services, and products.

The Simplicity Forum (Web Resource)
Lyons, CO: Simplicity Forum
The Simplicity Forum is a self-described "think tank of academics and authors, activists and artists, educators and entrepreneurs" concerned with promoting simple, just, and sustainable ways of life.

Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By (Book)
Danah Zohar, Ian Marshall, Authors.  San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004.
The authors advocate the creation of a values-based business culture, where raising the common good is integral to an organization’s mission. They argue that, without this shift in attitude, our sense of life's meaning will diminish.

'Tis a Gift to Be Simple: Embracing the Freedom of Living with Less (Book)
Barbara DeGrote-Sorensen, David Allen Sorensen, Authors.  Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Books, 1992.
The authors of this book examine the stresses of contemporary American life and suggest, through the story of their own journey toward simplicity, that a simple life can fill our truest need—for a relationship with God.