The Hope-full Politics of the Table

November 5, 2012 By 3 Comments
EDC-Square

  The following is a reflection that I will share tomorrow night as part of the Election Day Communion service here at Englewood Christian Church. Why celebrate communion on election day? To do so is not merely a religious act, we have intentionally chosen to break bread together -- not to have a worship or prayer service (good as those things are).  Tonight on the eve of this election day, we are celebrating our unity in seeking the Kingdom of God together.  But for many people, I imagine, the Kingdom of God is an abstract and nebulous thing.  Perhaps we should think of the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abundance, Community, Eucharist, Politics Tagged With: , , , , 3 Comments

The Groaning Table

October 20, 2012 By 1 Comment
The Groaning Table

After recently re-reading Wendell Berry’s essay “Health is Membership” and being struck by its pertinency today, I asked a few friends to read the essay and write a Slow Church-related reflection on the essay.  The is the second of these reflections by my friend Rachel Marie Stone.     ~Chris *** Read the first "Health is Membership" reflection by Brent Bill My grandmother was born at home in New York City in 1925 – exactly the time when more and more women, especially city women, began to choose hospital over home as the place to have babies. It wasn’t that my … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Abundance, Community, Health Tagged With: , , , , 1 Comment

Slowly Seeking the Shalom of God.

April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
PRGrocer

Yesterday, John raised the question: what are the standards by which we make decisions and judge the health of a church community in a peak oil world? This question has been a pressing one for us at Englewood Christian Church, one that has regularly been the focus of our Sunday night conversation (the story of which I told in the recent ebook The Virtue of Dialogue).  As I suggested in the comments to John's post, our experience has been that the standard should be the health and flourishing of our places, our church communities should bear witness to the neighbors in our particular place … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conversations, Food, Neighborhoods Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment

The Fall and Food Preservation [Guest Post -Thomas Turner]

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Home_Canning

Thom Turner is a friend and regular contributor to The Englewood Review of Books. Thom is also an adjunct lecturer of English at Nyack College and the Senior Editor and Publisher of GENERATE Magazine. He has recently been doing a wonderful series on his blog on a Christian ethic of eating, which has some important connections to our Slow Church project. I invited him to guest post here, and he offered the following reflection. Last night as I was ladling the oozing remnants of twenty five pounds of apples into just sterilized quart jars I got to thinking: why do I have to do … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Food, Meditations Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment

Setting the Table [Guest post by Jen Michel]

March 3, 2012 By 2 Comments
Table

Jen Michel is a new friend from Toronto that I met on my writing retreat in February.  She recently posted this piece on her blog, Finding My Pulse, and her reflections on the table were in line with our Slow Church image of "Dinner Table Conversation as a Way of Being Church," so I asked if she would mind my re-posting it here. Years ago, I read a great book by Danny Meyer called: Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business. At 27, Meyer opened what would become one of Manhattan’s best restaurants: Union Square Café. Since that time, he has experimented and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Eucharist, Food, Meditations, The Table Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments

Hungering and Thirsting After Righteousness [Guest Post -Thomas Turner]

February 23, 2012 By 2 Comments
Via Wikimedia Commons

Thom Turner is a friend and regular contributor to The Englewood Review of Books. Thom is also an adjunct lecturer of English at Nyack College and the Senior Editor and Publisher of GENERATE Magazine. He has recently been doing a wonderful series on his blog on a Christian ethic of eating, which has some important connections to our Slow Church project. I invited him to guest post here, and he offered this great reflection for the present season of Lent. When Christ tells us to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” or to pray that God “give us our daily bread” our full, first … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Meditations Tagged With: , , 2 Comments

Becoming Conversational #10 – Start a Community Garden.

February 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Virtue of Dialogue - C. Christopher Smith

My ebook The Virtue of Dialogue: Conversation as a Hopeful Practice of Church Communities was recently released by Patheos Press, and in it, I argue that open conversation is essential for the health and flourishing of church communities and the places they inhabit. Today is the final post in the series that I am calling "Becoming Conversational" in which I offer suggestions for how churches might enrich the conversational life of their church communities. (Some of these ideas have been adapted from my earlier ebook, Growing Deeper in Our Church Communities, which is available for free … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Conversations, Food Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment