Here’s a video clip of Alan Roxburgh talking about “The Call to the Parish” at The Inhabit Conference last month…
John and I both have been challenged by Roxburgh’s work, and especially his recent book, Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood (Baker, 2011 — Read my review of this book on The Englewood Review of Books website).
Had a fabulous time over the last few days at the Academy of Parish Clergy annual gathering in Dayton, Ohio. I found the diverse group of mostly mainline pastors to be extraordinarily hospitable, specifically in inviting me to represent The Englewood Review of Books there (Thanks, Bob Cornwall for the invitation!) and in allowing me to share bits of our story here at Englewood Christian Church (briefly recounted in my recent ebook, The Virtue of Dialogue). Also, it was wonderful to meet Carol Howard Merritt, who was the main conference speaker, and chat with her about some of the challenges facing mainline churches.
Since the outset of this Slow Church project over a year ago, John and I have both had a sense that the basic message of Slow Church — despite our choice to go with a publisher that works primarily with evangelical readers — is deeply pertinent to all churches: evangelical, emerging, and mainline. I want to sketch briefly here a couple of challenges facing mainline churches that were named during the APC gathering and on which our Slow Church work can perhaps shed s0me light: 1) The Nones, 2) The Desire for Conversation as a way of being together and 3) The Need for a New Economics of Church. (I might develop one or more of these into separate, more robust posts of their own, let me know if there is one or more that you particularly interested in hearing more about)…
John’s post on Saturday on the Moral Importance of the iPhone reminded me of one of my favorite courses in college, an honors seminar on technology and community. This class was my first deep immersion into the works of Wendell Berry, and it was also where I first encountered the work of the Amish writer David Kline. A major thrust of the course was reflecting on the ways in which our choices about technology impact the shape of our communities (as families, as churches and as neighborhoods. One of the pieces we read for the class was Wendell Berry’s little essay “Why I am NOT going to buy a computer,” which features this list of Berry’s standards for technological innovation:
1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
Yesterday, we took our homeschool co-op to the Indiana Repertory Theatre to see William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, the renowned story of Helen Keller’s childhood. This field trip was a special event since Rachel, one of our homeschoolers, had a small role in the play. It was an amazing performance, and especially 12-year old Ciarra Krohne who played the role of Helen (pictured).
But this is not a review of the play; there was one line that stuck in my head and that seemed particularly relevant to the recent posts here about the faithfulness of the local church in a peak oil world. Early on in the play, as the tension is building and as Anne Sullivan struggles to make the tiniest bits of progress in her work with Helen, the Keller family is about ready to dismiss Anne and in the course of this tense conversation, she says: “I have nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do.”
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