[There’s a] terrible blight of spiritual poverty in the [Visible] Church. It must be admitted that modernist Evangelicalism, with all its positive thinking, 12-steps-to-this and 7-steps-to-that programs, is spiritually bankrupt and the thirst for true spiritual reality has swept many professing Evangelicals into the contemplative camp in search of spiritual satisfaction yet all they receive are counterfeit trinkets.

Yet the Protestant Reformed tradition has the biblical answer to the heart’s yearning for spiritual reality, and the tragedy is that so many overlook the truth, and even worse when they ignore it altogether. Instead of following God’s way, they prefer their own methods; they have forsaken the fountains of living water for broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13).

Daniel Chew, author of  Driven Away on Purpose, from True and False Ideas on Spiritual Disciplines and Retreats