The New Parish<\/a>, as it seems to be coming from\u00a0the same perspective and made many of the same\u00a0points.<\/p>\nHere\u2019s my\u00a0interview with Pattison and Smith, the authors, two really nice guys who write very well.<\/p>\n
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Instead of asking, \u201cwhat is your book about,\u201d I\u2019m going to ask the question that\u2019s behind<\/em> that question. And that unspoken question is, \u201chow are readers going to benefit from reading your book?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nJohn Pattison: We have two primary hopes for readers of Slow Church<\/em>. The first, frankly, is that readers will feel a gentle dissatisfaction with \u201cchurch-as-usual.\u201d By that I mean approaches to church that reduce Christianity to a commodity that can be packaged, marketed, and sold; or to an individualistic faith that can be compartmentalized and managed from the privacy of our own homes. The second hope is that the book will fire readers\u2019 imaginations with a rich vision of the holistic, interconnected, and abundant life together we believe we\u2019ve been called to in Christ Jesus.<\/p>\nWhat is a \u201cslow church\u201d exactly?<\/strong><\/p>\nJohn Pattison: Slow Church<\/em> is inspired by Slow Food and the other Slow movements to re-think the way in which we live life together in our church communities. The various Slow movements \u2013 Slow Food, Slow Money, Slow Cities, etc. \u2013 differ in subject and scope and strategy. What they have in common, however, is their opposition to what the sociologist George Ritzer describes as \u201cMcDonaldization\u201d \u2013 the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant (efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control) have come to dominate more aspects of modern life.<\/p>\nWe think McDonaldization has proven alluring even to American church life. Well-meaning churches often emphasize quantity over quality, programs over people, control over empowerment, the sanctuary over the neighborhood, and efficiency over the good, long labor of spiritual formation. All in the name of \u201cproductivity.\u201d There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with efficiency, predictability, or even speed. But as standards they often undermine authentic presence \u2013 with God, with each other, and with our places.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the focus of a \u201cslow church\u201d isn\u2019t on finding the most efficient way to grow. It\u2019s final standard is faithfulness. A slow church comes to understand itself as a vital part of God\u2019s reconciling mission. It involves an attentiveness to what God is doing around us, and yet that attentiveness is nurtured over time and in place. This is usually long, slow work. But what\u2019s so great about this is that everything matters<\/em>. Even the down times, the dailiness of apprenticing ourselves to Jesus, all the quotidian details of life, the smallest acts of hospitality or generosity \u2013 they are all being woven together by God into the fabric of God\u2019s Kingdom.<\/p>\nMcDonaldized church growth strategies remind us of conventional farming practices that focus on the rapid growth of the crop or animal, often at the expense of quality, the land, and long-term sustainability. Slow Church<\/em> takes a more organic approach, focusing instead on the health of the \u201csoil,\u201d which is the local church and its neighborhood.<\/p>\nPlease give a few examples of a \u201cslow church\u201d \u2013 including the kinds of gatherings they have during the week, the types of things they do for community life, and finally, the way leadership and decision-making operate.<\/strong><\/p>\nJohn Pattison: First, to be clear, I don\u2019t know of any church out there that refers to itself as a \u201cslow church.\u201d Some of the articles about our book have speculated about the possibility of a \u201cSlow Church movement.\u201d Chris and I don\u2019t think of it like that. We think what\u2019s needed now is not another movement<\/em>, but rather a robust and diverse conversation<\/em>. Slow Church<\/em> is just Church. What we do is try to provide a metaphor, some stories, and a few key practices and convictions that can help disentangle the church from some of the worst aspects of Fast Life. We also wanted to affirm churches who are doing the patient, often un-sexy, rarely celebrated work of being faithfully, patiently rooted in their communities.<\/p>\nWith that caveat, let me tell you about some of the churches whose stories we tell in the book:<\/p>\n
Some gather on Sunday morning, others throughout the week. Some are small and meet in living rooms. Another \u2013 Salem Alliance Church in Salem, Oregon \u2013 is quite large. Most are somewhere in the middle. In addition to worship, several churches we highlight gather to eat together and talk together \u2013 important formative slow church practices.<\/p>\n
Many of these faith communities have doubled down on their relationships with their neighborhoods, making the countercultural decision to not <\/em>move to the suburbs in search of cheaper land and more abundant parking. At still other churches, members have moved closer to the church so they can live life more intimately with neighbors.<\/p>\nWhile these churches have many values in common (gratitude, hospitality, and more), the ways in which those values work out practically are indigenous from one diverse context to the next \u2013 another important aspect of Slow Church<\/em>. This is true even of leadership and decision-making. Some operate by consensus; others don\u2019t. Most, however, have a deep commitment to trust-building that is developed in conversation.<\/p>\nHow is your book different from the many other books on ecclesiology out there today?<\/strong><\/p>\nChris Smith: Well, hopefully ours is one that ordinary Christians want to read!\u00a0 Ecclesiology is not something that is talked about much outside of seminaries, and that\u2019s a huge problem. One of our main goals was to write a book about ecclesiology, about the church, that ordinary church members would want to read and talk about with others in their church. \u00a0Neither John nor I are pastors, church planters, or professional theologians. In fact, we say in the book\u2019s introduction that we are \u201camateurs\u201d in the root sense of that word, which implies doing something out of love for it. We love<\/em> the church.<\/p>\nWe hope Slow Church<\/em> ignites a much-needed conversation about ecclesiology that is rooted where it matters the most: in our local churches. The community of God into which we\u2019ve been called is a social<\/em> reality. But our formation as Westerners\u2014including the way we read scripture (for example, all those plural \u201cyou\u201ds that we take as singular)\u2014makes us uncomfortable talking about the church that way. I think though our book is a timely one: as modernity crumbles, people are hungry for community, for an alternative to the alienation and the isolation that we find ourselves in amidst a culture formed by centuries of individualism.<\/p>\nGive us two or three insights from the book that would be helpful to Christians.<\/strong><\/p>\nChris Smith: First, and most importantly, church matters! Local communities of Christ\u2019s followers gathered in their particular places\u2014these are at the heart of what God is doing in the world. Church isn\u2019t just a building or a Sunday morning service, a place we go or an event we attend to get spiritually recharged. From Israel, to the apostles, to Pentecost, and to the present day, God is gathering a people who in their life together bear witness to the good news of God\u2019s reconciling love.<\/p>\n
And a church is more than its pastors or the sum of its leadership.\u00a0 As Paul emphasizes in 1 Cor. 12 and elsewhere, every person has a role to play in the functioning of the local Body, and gifts that facilitate that role. If we believe God is reconciling all<\/em> things, then there is room for the gifts and skills of everyone\u2014not just pastors and musicians and Sunday School teachers (as important as these are), but also plumbers and entrepreneurs and artists and real estate agents and professors and everyone<\/em>.<\/p>\nSecond, our call as communities of God\u2019s people is not to see how big, wealthy, or powerful we can become. Our call is to a deeper, more vibrant, more faithful life together\u2014shaped by the reconciling love of God. Of course, there\u2019s always the temptation to swing too far in this direction and forget that church is not an end in itself, but also means to bear witness to our neighbors. We need to be engaged with our neighbors so they can see God\u2019s love and healing power at work in our midst.<\/p>\n
Have you gotten any push-back on the book? If so, explain and respond.<\/strong><\/p>\nChris Smith: I think the biggest pushback that we have gotten is that suggestion that slow church is a sort of elitist luxury. (Interestingly, this is also the most common critique leveled at the Slow Food Movement.) The most thoughtful of these critiques came early on from James K.A. Smith, in an article entitled \u201cKnitting While Detroit Burns?\u201d, in which he says:<\/p>\n
And let\u2019s be honest: Slow and local is a luxury. Because slow means waiting, and those suffering injustice can\u2019t wait. While Christian eschatology teaches us to wait in hope, that waiting is a kind of holy impatience, the sort that infused Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s excoriating reminder that often \u201cWait\u201d just means \u201cNever.\u201d<\/p>\n
This critique came out several months before the book did, but I have argued that it is a straw man. One of the central tenets of slow church, as John and I described it, is that God is reconciling all <\/em>creation and we are ambassadors of that reconciliation. Thus, passivity is not an option. What we\u2019re concerned about is how<\/em> we engage.<\/p>\nWhile we can sympathize with the sort of frantic activism that responds to crises with the mentality of \u201cWe\u2019ve got to do<\/em> something!,\u201d careless action can often do more harm than good. John and I maintain that we need certainly need to be engaged and act, but we need to do so out of reflection that originates in our local church communities.\u00a0 Slow, for us, doesn\u2019t always mean that we have to literally move slowly.<\/p>\nRather, it must that we must always act attentively, and if we are becoming engaged in new ways, we might literally be slow, but the more we continue to be engaged, our action can become swifter and more skillful.\u00a0 It\u2019s like riding a bike, or any activity that we mature at over time, we\u2019ve got to start slow and be persistent, and if we are, then we will be able to act well with more urgency.<\/p>\n
When a reader finishes your book, what will they \u201ctake away\u201d from it?<\/strong><\/p>\nChris Smith: The final chapter of the book is on reimagining church as dinner table conversation, and that\u2019s the image that we want to leave kicking around the reader\u2019s head as he\/she sets the book down.\u00a0 This image is, of course, a Eucharistic one, recalling the life of the early church in Jerusalem, a key facet of which was breaking bread together daily.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want churches to do away with their practices of Eucharist or communion, but we think that it is really important for churches \u2013 very intentionally and thoughtfully \u2013 to find ways to share regular meals together. Eating is an economic act, and in sharing a meal together, we are sustaining one another. Sharing meals also requires that we make economic decisions (like where is the food going to come from, and who is going to cook it, and who is going to clean up after the meal?) and brings our faith down from abstract theological convictions about God and the world to the concrete realities of day-to-day life.<\/p>\n
Eating meals together is important not only as a way of sharing life and sustenance, but also for the space it affords us to talk together. Conversation is becoming a lost art in Western culture, (look at the failures in dialogue that prevail between parties in the US Congress, for instance), and our church communities should be an important place where we learn to talk \u2013 and to be<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 together. It is in conversation that we learn to discern together, working together to understand what God is up to in the world and how we as a particular group of people in a particular time and place follow God\u2019s leading together, and how the gifts of every unique person in the church contribute to what God desires to do in our neighborhood.<\/p>\nConversation is a vital practice for churches, and one that is not discussed enough; we want people to begin experimenting with it and sharing meals together is a great place to start, especially when we bear in mind that when we do so we are remembering self-denying, sacrificial life of Christ, and not just having a good time together.<\/p>\n
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