To marry St. Paul and Aesop, perhaps slow and steady wins the Christian race. Enjoy Mandy's conversation with Chris Smith and John Pattison. A free sampler containing two chapters of the Slow Church book is available online. -Paul
The story of Mary and Martha is a timeless challenge about the balance of being and doing. We often look for a personal application but does it also apply to our approach to church? How are our churches balancing "sitting at the feet of Jesus" with the management of tasks? In many ways, the contemporary church has become like Martha—busy for the sake of Jesus. But was Jesus' problem with Martha's doing or the reason for her doing?
This is one of the many thought-provoking questions that came to mind at this week's Slow Church Conference at Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis (whose own history is part of the Slow Church story). The purpose of this event was partly to promote the book, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus, but it was clearly about much more than selling books. Instead of building a conference from the content of the book, authors, C. Christopher (Chris) Smith and John Pattison—two Christian thinkers who have decidedly not given up on the local church—shaped it around those who have been their inspiration. Over three days, authors and academics including David Fitch, Willie Jennings, Christine Pohl and Phil Kenneson shared their visions for the Church. Laypeople, pastors and para-church workers came from as far as Connecticut, Texas, and Oregon to join the conversation about what Slow Church could look like in their churches and neighborhoods.
Honoring the spirit of slowness, in the midst of this busy conference, Chris and John sat with me for a good old fashioned chat (while we enjoyed homemade soup and locally-grown salad, provided by the good people of Englewood Church). Such a simple, home-made meal seemed fitting, since much of the inspiration for the Slow Church movement grows from the Slow Food movement.
Mandy: What values from the slow food movement have you translated to Slow Church?
Chris: The three cardinal virtues of the slow food movement are a preference for food that is slow, clean and fair. We have reinterpreted those into language more familiar to churches: ethics, ecology, and economy.
By ethics we mean focusing on being the church well, a focus on quality versus quantity. The practices that move us in this direction are stability (being rooted in our setting) and patience (learning to follow in the way of Jesus that doesn't coerce, and learning to reconnect our ends and our means).
Ecology is about being attentive to what God has called us to do but also to how we do it. The practices that we talk about in terms of ecology are work and Sabbath—remembering the ways that scripture talks about life as cycles of work and Sabbath.
John: The third element of Slow Church is economy. If the ecology of Slow Church is God's reconciling of all things, the economy is God's provision for God's reconciling work. We make the case that we live within the abundant economy of God. It's complex because we are also living in the world. This is God's household though, and the law of God's household is one of abundance.
We are called to share the abundance of God's kingdom with others. So it messes with the usual way that we think about economy—which is in terms of scarcity and supply-and-demand.
With regard to economy, we talk about two practices in particular: gratitude, which helps us see God's abundance all around and hospitality which directly challenges the dehumanization that results from a culture shaped by individualism and industrialization.
Chris: The image we want to leave people at the end of the book is how our local congregations can begin to imagine church as dinner table conversation. Eating together is a way of starting to embody the sort of economy we describe. Food is sustenance; it's life.
As theologian John Howard Yoder once observed, perhaps the community in Acts 2 didn't have a common purse but a common table. In sharing the real sustenance of life they were caring for one another, but also in sharing their lives around the table, other sorts of needs would begin to emerge as stories were told. The other part of that is conversation, just getting to know one another, learning to know each other's gifts. Instead of starting with the question, "What does this community need?" we start with the question "What has God already provided?" Conversation is a way we start to recognize one another as assets. The primary asset we have is people, and sometimes even our brokenness can be gifts to the community.
John: And so in that one image of the church (as dinner table conversation) it incorporates the ethics, ecology and economy of Slow Church into one practice.
This sounds very different from the way contemporary church is often done. How do you think it will be received by people who are used to that way?
Through a broader understanding of vocation, people can be encouraged and empowered to exercise their own gifts and passions. For pastors who need to be in control, it's going to be unsettling.
John: We know that this book is going to appeal to certain leaders and that's great. But we also want people who aren't pastors or theologians or professional Christians to read this book and to be dissatisfied with church as they've known it.
John: Through discernment and a broader understanding of vocation, people can be encouraged and empowered to exercise their own gifts and passions. For pastors who need to be in control, it's going to be unsettling. We need to get away from the four characteristics of McDonaldization: predictability, calculability, efficiency and control.
Although this isn't only about time, for many "slow" is hard to embrace when our mission feels so pressing. How can we do Slow Church while still maintaining a sense of urgency?
Chris: One of the things we caution against is the mindset that we just need to do something. Slow Church in a lot of ways is about being instead of doing: that is, becoming a people among whom doing comes out of being. In order to properly respond to urgency we have to have some sort of a reservoir, some deep roots.
What we're encouraging is for churches to grow deeper, to know the people in their congregation and neighborhood and to be attentive to these people in how they respond. Ultimately, slow is not about speed, it's about attentiveness. Once we start to grow deeper in our knowledge of our place, our neighbors, and the people in our congregation, we're able to respond and discern better what really needs urgency and what doesn't.
Can a large church be a slow church, or is this only for small churches?
John: We don't talk too much about size—except to say that that's not the important metric that we have come to think it is. But for larger churches who get excited about these slow ideas, I like the idea of larger churches partnering with smaller churches.
Chris: The ideas and practices of Slow Church might also begin to take root in groups within a large church: A Sunday School class or small group, for instance.
Churches often feel the need to relate to the fast pace of culture with entertainment and programming. How does Slow Church connect to people in a culture of instant gratification?
John: Maybe they don't understand what they need. Instant gratification is misplaced desire. It's a reflection of a desire for something real, but the way it's often satisfied is not real. What people really want is those deep human connections with each other and ultimately with God. The church should not have the job of satisfying people's misplaced desires but of embodying a different way that is deeply resonant with what people actually want.
On a practical level then, how then could a church actually get people in the door—or get in their door—to be able to even have those conversations?
People in my neighborhood aren't looking for a church. What they're looking for is authentic community.
John: That is a fundamental question! Maybe the question is "Should our focus be on getting them inside our door or even getting inside their door." The "attractional" church, as Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch call it, is going to be of limited effectiveness in post-Christendom. People in my neighborhood aren't looking for a church. What they're looking for is authentic community, which happens in living rooms, in third places like pubs and coffee shops, on street corners and in parks.
Is slow something that comes naturally to both of you?
John: No. Everything in my upbringing says "every two years I want to move," but we moved with a 12 year commitment to the place where we live, and we joined our church and made a commitment to it. What's been an important shift in our thinking is something I've learned from Esther Lightcap Meek's book Loving to Know. She says that the covenantal way of knowing is to love something and then you can know it in a deep way. Slow Church does not come naturally to me, but we have made a covenant with our place, our neighbors, the members of our church and that has made all the difference. I still have that wanderlust that comes up every two years but because we're committed to this place, we're staying here.
Chris: For me, Slow Church is a challenge because I struggle with being formed by an individualistic culture, to want to pursue my own story, whatever is best for me, regardless of where that is. I bear the wounds of moving around from place to place and doing that for many years. By nature I'm also the sort of person who just wants to see stuff get done. Working on this Slow Church project has helped me articulate some of the ways that God has been changing me.
If a church is interested in slowing down, how should it start?
Learn the story of your church in its place. What sort of relationship does your church have with its neighborhood now—and what relationship has it had in the past?
John: Learn the story of your church in its place. What sort of relationship does your church have with its neighborhood now—and what relationship has it had in the past? How have the stories of your church and neighborhood intersected? The key question is: Is the church living above its place, outside its place or within its place? Or maybe even underneath the place in a posture of service.
—
While there were many new ideas and fascinating conversations to process after this unique event, for much of our two hour drive home, my associate pastor and I talked about something very simple: How can our congregation find more opportunities to eat and talk together? This could seem like a very Martha thing to do—because now we have to talk about the details of food preparation.
We can step into a kind of doing that shapes our being and a kind of being that shapes our doing, a way to do church as whole selves.
But after our time with Slow Church people, we're seeing how the ways of Mary and Martha come together. We can step into a kind of doing that shapes our being and a kind of being that shapes our doing, a way to do church as whole selves. So the decision to do what might look like Martha is not about adding a program to control or predict. Instead, we want to eat together more out of a renewed commitment to step into the messiness of meals and conversation, embracing the practices which connect us to one another and to God. Trusting that in the slow act of eating together, we will be formed.
And church will happen.
Mandy Smith serves as lead pastor at University Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is the author of Making a Mess and Meeting God: Unruly Ideas and Everyday Experiments for Worship
