I had the privilege of participating tonight in an interfaith panel on philanthropy, an IndyTalks event put on by Christian Theological Seminary and the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving. My co-panelists had amazing stories of working around the world, and I was certainly the lightweight on the panel when it came to international philanthropy. I wanted to share here a little about the key idea that I addressed. Here at Englewood, we don’t use the word philanthropy much, as... Read more
There is a group of us here at Englewood Christian Church who have been reading and reflecting on the Sermon on the Mount together over the summer. Last night, we had the opportunity as part of our Sunday Night Conversation (You can read more about that here…) to share our reflections with the church community. Our conversation — both in the smaller group over the summer and with the larger church last night focused on the Beatitudes at the beginning... Read more
A few days ago, I read an interesting article over at The Atlantic Cities called the “The Lifecycle of a ‘Cool’ Neighborhood.” The sociologist and historian Richard Greenwald writes in the article that “Declaring the death of hip neighborhoods seems to be an endless right of passage in Gotham.” It comes with the territory of knowing and labeling – articulating really – what matters in a rootless city. Neighborhoods come and go – and I mean that in the Brooksian Bo-Bo way. During... Read more
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 first of these reflections by my friend Brent Bill. ~Chris Almost twenty years ago Wendell Berry gave an address titled “Health is Membership.” Berry, the agrarian poet/novelist/theologian, presented a pretty scathing indictment of the then “modern” health system in the US... Read more
Tony Jones recently posted some harsh critiques of homeschooling (“Death to Homeschooling!” and “Why Homeschoolers Don’t Understand Missional”) that have been generating quite a bit of backlash and conversation. Jamie Arpin-Ricci, for instance, has offers some great thoughts in response: “Missional Implications of Education.” I agree with Tony that there some screwed up thoughts driving the way that some folks do homeschooling, but as a number of people have noted (including Mark Van Steenwyk) there are a wide range... Read more
David Owen has long been one of our favorite thinkers here at Englewood; his book Green Metropolis was selected by The Englewood Review of Books as one of the Best Books of 2009. [ Read our review // Watch a video of a lecture related to the book ] I was recently alerted to the fact that he published a new book earlier this year (that somehow slipped under our radar), entitled: The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and... Read more
This morning I was re-reading my favorite Wendell Berry essay, “Discipline and Hope,” which has become an essential text for me in trying to understand the meaning and implications of Slow Church. I was struck today by a short passage on the ways we have come to idolize the present economy. Berry writes: “If the Golden Rule were generally observed among us, the economy would not last a week. We have made our false economy a false god, and it... Read more
Let me pick up on where Chris left off and post something here to mark the birthday of Jean Vanier. My first book was called Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture. The subtitle of Besides the Bible doesn’t really reflect the goal of the book, which was simply to recommend 100 books my co-authors and I thought every Christian should read. One of the essays I wrote for Besides the Bible was about... Read more
Today is the birthday of Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities. If there is anyone who could be called a prophet of Slow Church, it is Vanier… Here is an excellent seven-part interview with Vanier (the quality of what Vanier says is excellent, the quality of the video and audio, less so… Sometimes you may need to turn up the volume to catch what the soft-spoken Vanier is saying…) I recommend starting with this video (Part 7): [... Read more
Tomorrow I have the opportunity to go an hour or so up the road from here to talk with some students at my alma mater, Taylor University. The primary question that we will tackle will be what is sustainability? And how do we pursue it? I’m sure we’ll have some good conversation along the way. I will argue that our best hope of a sustainable way of life is in the revival of parish life, (a term I’m borrowing from... Read more
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