Description:
Readers' Choice Award Winner
Best Books About the Church from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore
Fast food. Fast cars. Fast and furious. Fast forward. Fast . . . church?
The church is oftenidealized (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.
Brief description:
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 appearedin Books and Culture, Sojourners, The Christian Century and Indiana Green Living.
Review Quotes:
"Slow Church is a manifesto and handbook rolled into one. Unlike most manifestos, it is beautifully written, blending historical analysis, personal narrative, and scriptural exegesis into prose that is languid, incisive, and eloquent. It reads like what it is: the long, patient fruit of two men deeply rooted in a particular place, among neighbors they know, love, and serve. . . . No matter the size of our church body or the kind of neighborhood we live in, we would all do well to slow down and examine ourselves in the clearest light available--the light of history, the light of Scripture, and the light of Christ himself--rather than the fluorescent light of business models and burger joints. Make haste, then. Run, do not walk, toyour favorite bookstore, buy a copy, and set your church table for a feast."
--Leslie Leyland Fields, Christianity Today, September 2014