Takeaway: People are reflection of God. The ways God creates people to draw near to him are a gift to the church. God has created us all with a desire for him, but those methods of spiritual growth are not the same. Gary Thomas talks about 9 ways that we can draw near to God.
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This is a book I have had on my shelf for a long time and just finally got around to reading it. I have read a couple of books that are similar, most recently Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster. Streams of Living Water is focused on the different Christian faith traditions and their strengths and contributions to Christianity as a whole. Sacred Pathways is focused on individual spiritual temperaments and how the way God has made each of us, affects the way that we are designed to love God. Unfortunately, some people fall into the trap of believing that all spiritual growth should look the same (30 minute quiet time, daily prayer alone, Sunday School attendance, active service to the poor, etc.). Instead, if we read our bibles it is pretty easy to see that the characters of scripture had different temperaments, different ways of relating to God and different pathways to spiritual growth. The focus of this book is to give a brief overview of 9 different methods for reaching out to God, along with a short questionare on each chapter and some pastoral advice about places that each temperament tends to be helpful and places each temperament tends to have issues. The final, fairly short chapter is very useful for helping people make a plan for spiritual growth based on their own temperament, while maintaining a good balance with areas that they may be less comfortable.
