Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
About this ebook
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Fast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church?
The church is often idealized (or demonized) as the last bastion of a bygone era, dragging our feet as we're pulled into new moralities and new spiritualities. We guard our doctrine and our piety with great vigilance. But we often fail to notice how quickly we're capitulating, in the structures and practices of our churches, to a culture of unreflective speed, dehumanizing efficiency and dis-integrating isolationism.
In the beginning, the church ate together, traveled together and shared in all facets of life. Centered as they were on Jesus, these seemingly mundane activities took on their own significance in the mission of God. In Slow Church, Chris Smith and John Pattison invite us to leave franchise faith behind and enter into the ecology, economy and ethics of the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loved the church.
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About the author
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (M.Div., Duke Divinity School) is director of the School for Conversion in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a member of the Rutba House new monastic community. He is the author of To Baghdad and Beyond and coauthor of Inhabiting the Church: Biblical Wisdom for a New Monasticism. He is also the coeditor of School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism. Catch up with him at newmonasticism.org.
John Pattison is an author, community advocate, grant writer and nonprofit consultant who leads The Resourceful Community, a blog that connects community leaders to the resources of community flourishing. He is the coauthor of Slow Church and Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture.Formerly the managing editor of CONSPIRE Magazine and deputy editor of the Burnside Writers Collective, Pattison's essays, articles and reviews have appeared in Relevant, Books Culture and the Englewood Review of Books. He is also a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives with his wife Kate and their two daughters in Oregon's Mid-Willamette Valley.
C. Christopher Smith is editor of The Englewood Review of Books and a member of the Englewood Christian Church community on the urban Near Eastside of Indianapolis. He is the coauthor of Slow Church.Chris's writing has appeared in Books and Culture, Sojourners, The Christian Century and Indiana Green Living.
