What better book could there be to recommend on the first Sunday of Advent? For more on what the Advent Conspiracy is, see John’s recent post here, Plotting an Advent Conspiracy. You might also be interested in this video with one of the AC instigators Chris Seay, talking about slowing our pace during the holidays. This review originally appeared in The Englewood Review of Books… “To Honor the Incarnation” A Review of Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?... Read more
Starting on Monday (Nov. 28), Chris Smith will be coordinating a daily series of reflections here on the daily lectionary texts throughout the season of Advent. Advent is too often a season when the pace of life speeds up instead of slowing down. Through these Advent reflections, we hope to challenge ourselves to slow down, be attentive and remember all the gifts of life that surround us daily. To be sure you don’t miss these reflections, connect with the Slow... Read more
Well, it is official and officially public: Chris and I just signed a contract with InterVarsity Press to write the book, Slow Church. The plan right now is to write the book over the next eight months, with a release date of mid-2013. Chris and I both have such high regard for IVP – especially its Likewise imprint, which has published some of our favorite books of the last few years, including books by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Jamie Arpin-Ricci,... Read more
Few writers have the capacity that David Dark has, to orchestrate familiar stories from literature and popular culture as part of engaging theological discourse. In his new book The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, David emphasizes that questioning, and more broadly that conversation, is an essential practice in the life of the Church. Indeed, conversation is fundamental to our identity as the community of God’s people, relating to one another and to God. It is a lost art that must be... Read more
This is one of the most helpful books in thinking about how we read the Bible and offers a way of reading the Bible that is much more in line with what we are describing here as Slow Church. (This review originally appeared in The Englewood Review of Books, 9 October 2009) “Of Mules and Mission” A Review of Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. by Ellen F. Davis. Paperback: Cambridge UP, 2008. Buy now: [ Amazon... Read more
Walter Brueggemann is one of the first theologians that I think of when I think of Slow Church, yet I had never heard him explicitly use the language of Slow, until I saw this video from Baylor University (It’s 67 minutes long, but well worth it!) Read more
Today is the birthday of Dorothy Day – the journalist and social activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement. To mark the occasion, I’m posting the essay I wrote about Day’s classic autobiography, The Long Loneliness. The essay first appeared in Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture (Biblica, 2010). I also encourage you to check out this wonderful video of Dorothy Day on the Christopher Closeup show. The photograph on the cover of HarperOne’s 1997... Read more
This reflection is reposted here with the permission of the author. It originally appeared on the Dmergent blog. Wrestling with our fear of failing and learning to fail graciously is essential to the concept of Slow Church that we are exploring here, and we are honored to repost this excellent piece. My Dirty Secret I have a secret fear. I don’t like to talk about it, because I find it embarrassing. I’m afraid of looking stupid. I don’t like to... Read more
If there is one short work that gets to the heart of what Slow Church is about, it is the chapter “Eucharistic Table Manners” from Norman Wirzba’s new book Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. It is from Wirzba, and from John Howard Yoder before him, that we borrow the central image of the Slow Church as that of a shared meal: The ritualized character of the Eucharist sometimes causes people to forget that the supper was a meal. ... Read more
Whether your costume is back in storage or still crumpled up on the floor, whether or not you’re still coming down from your sugar high, Halloween is over and so begins the unofficial start to the holiday season. (Hey, Costco has been selling Christmas ornaments since at least September.) This is the time of year we re-connect with family and friends, take time to acknowledge our many blessings, and of course celebrate Emmanuel, God with us. It’s also a season... Read more
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