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    Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
    Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
    Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
    Audiobook8 hours

    Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus

    Written by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison

    Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

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    About this audiobook

    2014 Readers' Choice Award Winner 2014 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 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristianAudio.com
    Release dateFeb 29, 2016
    ISBN9781633898271
    Author

    C. Christopher Smith

    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.

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    • 3/5
      I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through second grade. I went through first communion. After that period, I would attend Midnight Mass (on Christmas) and Easter Vigil at a Benedictine monastery (a tradition I've kept up). I tend to choose something to sacrifice for lent. Other than these things though, I don't think you could call me a practicing Christian.I came across this book when I met one of the authors at a Slow Money National Gathering in 2014, right around the time it was first published. I found the concept compelling due to its focus around community. The book is structured around three pillars: ethics, ecology, and economy.There's fascileness that both authors bring to their interactions with biblical citations. Although they cite the Bible extensively as part of their ontology, I didn't feel like it detracted from the book. They also shared a number of stories from their communities.I think this book could be compelling to anyone thinking about spiritual community.
    • 5/5
      Sometimes you pick up a book and know you'll like it because you know you agree with it, and you know you'll review it well to support the authors and get the ideas out there with some more traction. And that's not a bad thing.

      But occasionally, something from that stack REALLY jumps out to you as IMPORTANT. This book is that way. It's IMPORTANT.

      The co-authors build from the themes of the Slow Food movement into a general Slow Church movement, while saying "this isn't the next big thing. it's just ordinariness called into life." As such, it's not Missional, Incarnational, House, Seeker-*, Network, or any other good idea that ends up just getting franchised. This is a theological, cultural and pragmatic foundation for Church. Of all flavors, but which will be engaged in neighborhood, community, relationship and reality. It's given me a broader language for the Church, and also some energizing ideas about how spiritual formation might be approached in a similar, slow, holistic, ordinary way.

      I highly recommend it to all who lead, pastor, attend, or care about the Christian church, in all its flavors.