Years ago, I took my youth group to PASSPORT Camp for their first ever camp experience. What I did not expect was the response the youth brought back to their households. One mother called me, worried about her child, who had gone through his closet and located clothes and other items he wanted to give to charity. Another student was changing dietary patterns in response to a challenge offered one night when all the students had for supper was beans and rice.
The residual impact of that week was located in an extraordinary theme, compellingly presented. The theme was “Katundu” — a Chichewa word for “baggage,” “junk,” or “stuff.” In every conceivable way, campers spent the week exploring how to be less tied to their stuff and how to lean into silence, solitude, and simplicity.
Simplicity is a spiritual virtue cultivated in the daily living of life. Richard Foster describes the deeply challenging way of simplicity in his books Celebration of Discipline and Freedom of Simplicity. For Foster, simplicity in its clearest sense is best understood when we hold it against its competitor: duplicity. Simplicity is known in pursuing one goal above all else — a single focus for every aspect of our lives.
For Christians, that goal is given to us by Jesus in Matthew 6:33: “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness.” That call comes before everything else. The moment we make our lives focused on anything other than God’s kingdom — no matter how worthy that thing might be — we turn it into an idol. But when the kingdom of God is genuinely placed first, the many other things that preoccupy our anxious thoughts receive their proper attention.
Simplicity is a powerful discipline by which God searches and sifts out anything that distracts from God’s will and way. The discipline of simplicity is an inward reality resulting in an outward lifestyle. What goes on inside our hearts impacts the world around us and who we are in it.
Foster lists ten outward expressions of Christian simplicity: 1) Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status. 2) Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you. 3) Develop a habit of giving things away. 4) Refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry. 5) Learn to enjoy things without owning them. 6) Develop a deeper appreciation for creation. 7) Look with a healthy skepticism at all “buy now, pay later” schemes. 8) Obey Jesus’ instructions about plain, honest speech. 9) Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others. 10) Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God.
At its center, the discipline of simplicity is about more freedom, not less. God is calling us to live simply as Jesus lived — focused on the inbreaking of God’s reign in the world. May it be so!
Grace and Peace,