Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus

Slow Church is a wonderful book that I highly recommend! It is centered around the three themes of ethics, ecology and economy. There is a strong focus on the importance of embedding ourselves in the local context of our particular place. This is what the ethics of Slow Church is about. Chris and John talk about terroir as “the combination of nonhuman factors (soil, water, slope, height above sea level, vegetation, micro-climate) and human ones (tradition, practice, cultivation) that gives a unique character to each small agricultural locality and the food grown, raised, made and cooked there.” This is what the slow food movement of Carlo Petrini is based on. Slow Church is rooted in the natural and human cultures of a particular place as well, as Chris and John have a strong emphasis on stability and patience to create a relational context of rich depth over time.They go on to talk about the ecology of Slow Church which is based on wholeness, work and sabbath. The economy of Slow Church is based on abundance, gratitude, hospitality and dinner table conversations. I particularly love the way Chris and John stress how a posture of hospitality to the other and eating together as we become liberated from a scarcity mindset will help us to live more authentically. They bring up how the virtue of conversation, work and rest need to be practiced and not separated from the particular place that we live. I love these themes and quotes from the book:• Deeply rooted and maturing in our particular places“…in order to bear fruit, to extend hospitality and to nurture a flourishing community, our faith communities must be deeply rooted and maturing in our particular places. The good and abundant life God intends for creation is through the interdependency of God’s creatures, and this interdependency… flourishes best when we stay put over a long period of time.”• Recovering a sense of parish responsibility“Unless churches today can recover a sense of parish responsibility, of belonging to people and place, we will continue to propagate the disembodied Christianity – and its accompanying racial, social and economic injustices…”• Come to know the taste of a place“Thus to come to know the taste of a place is to blur the line between ourselves and the other. It thwarts the forces of alienation. As I become part of my place it becomes part of me.”• Providing a rich context to grow deeper“...our commitment to grow deeper with the same people in the same place – come what may – will provide a rich context through which God will bring forth fruits of the Spirit… The health and fruitfulness of a plant diminishes each time it is uprooted. In the same way, our growth toward patience is stunted each time we uproot ourselves from the sustaining soil of our local community…”

I had never heard of either C. Christopher Smith or John Pattison, the coauthors of "Slow Church," and I'm guessing you haven't either. They aren't Seminary professors or famous church growth gurus. Yet, they are insightful writers with a timely message. As the title suggests, this isn't a book with a recipe for microwaving your church on the fast track to becoming a mega-church... and that's quite okay, because Slow Church is not licence for mediocrity either.The book would certainly be useful in a seminary classroom, but I think it's written by "laymen" so well, every member of the body would be blessed by it. You can look up the table of contents on Amazon or browse through a copy in your local bookstore to see for yourself the breakdown of the book; I'm more interested in sharing with you my impression of the book from my perspective as a Restoration Movement minister. But, I will add here, each chapter stays on track, most of the book is filled with ample quotes from dozens of helpful books, and they conclude their chapters with "Conversation starters" that you could use in a small group study.We are in our 3rd year of a church plant, and most weeks I feel tremendous pressure to be growing our church faster and bigger. I've tried to read half a dozen church growth books with titles you'd more than likely recognize, and frankly I couldn't get through them. I tried to read a few of the "organic" and "simple" church books from the last decade, and I had a hard time plowing through them as well. With Slow Church, I had to pace myself, I wanted to savor each morsel. It was so good, I didn't want to rush through it like a storm that washes away the topsoil, I wanted to let it soak in.As I read Slow Church, I thought of the people I personally minister to, and I wondered how they would respond to the material I was reading. Instead of hawking the book, I mentioned I was reading it, and I did use some of its topics as I preached. I wove in some of Slow Church over a couple of months (in my sermons as I preached & in several tweets on Twitter), and so far I haven't had to nail the back door shut.Slow Church helped me relax my anxieties and it helped me to refocus my priorities. Slow church isn't about giving you permission to forget about growth, it helps you to understand what real growth entails. Slow Church defuses the toxic idea that has infiltrated many congregations, namely Slow Church refutes the accepted ideas that efficiency, consumerism, and control are what works best.We are disconnected from our neighbors, our communities, and mostly from the people we worship with Sunday mornings. Slow Church reflects on the need to say no to the hyperactivity and slick ways of the world, and to slow down long enough to experience Christianity the way God intended us to, in community, in peace, and unrushed. Slow Church calls us to reconnect with each other, and to reject the materialistic methodology that drives the fast food industry and most of today's culture.Slow Church challenges our craving for quantity over quality, and it gives us fresh ways to envision the Kingdom of God -- to not just measure success, but to aim for significance. God wants us to partner with Him in His creation, and to expand His Kingdom, and for Slow Church this means we give up our narrow view of staking claim to the pitiful little empires we cling to. And, Slow Church calls us to share life together. We are not in competition with the world around us, and you can't stockpile manna, so be compassionate and connect with what counts most, people.The heart of Slow Church is about having the right rhythm which brings true Shalom peace, and Slow church reveals our need to be intentional -- to realize our identities as disciples of Christ. The industrialized culture of speed that we are immersed in has fragmented and warped us; it's caused tremendous relationship deficits. Slow Church is a worthwhile read to help us reconnect with the heart of Jesus' message, to value people, and to see that nickels and noses are not the only or the best marks for faithfulness.

As a house church leader I was excited to dive into the thoughts of Slow Church and reflect on there practices with my own tribe. What I found was a deeply enriching call for my community to draw close to the Holy Spirit's presence and find revelation in his "Slow" Kingdom work through our simple neighbourhood relationships and activities. Deeply loved reading this book and hope to resource it to the other leaders and members of The Edge House Church Network!

This book was a great read. What does it really mean to be church? We all know it's supposed to be about the people not the building. This book unpacks, so many of the issues. The way it is written though, doesn't leave you despondent. It leaves you wanting to take action. Which is very apt.

Great book, really enjoyed insights, wide research and practical examples. I have read widely in this area of the new incarnational church movements and this provides a great overview and easy read for this movement. Recommend it as a great broad overview and an impactful way to introduce a "struggling church goer" to a new (or old original) way God intended church to be. Thanks!

looks good!

A breath of fresh air