Marginal Christianity

     One of the great virtues of Slow Church (hereafter SC ), and there are many, is that one who knows only the traditional church will not easily recognize what they read there as having much to do with church! Before any meaningful steps toward fresh forms of church more resonate with the world we live in and the scriptures we live by can be taken, we must somehow come to term with the reality that church as we have known it no longer can or does “work” in our time and place.   This is a very difficult reality to accept “all the way down.”   No more tinkering, no more incremental recalibrating of the present system.   Instead, we need a fresh vision that can immerse us again in our scriptures and enliven our imaginations to dream new dreams about being God’s people in our own neighborhoods. That means “we can’t get there from here.”   It seems to me that the inherited structures, expectations, and history create an inertia that will not ...

Old Testament Lection for Monday of Holy Week:  Isaiah 42:1-9 1 But here is my servant, the one I uphold;      my chosen, who brings me delight. I’ve put my spirit upon him;      he will bring justice to the nations. 2  He won’t cry out or shout aloud      or make his voice heard in public. 3  He won’t break a bruised reed;      he won’t extinguish a faint wick,      but he will surely bring justice. 4  He won’t be extinguished or broken      until he has established justice in the land. The coastlands await his teaching. 5  God the   Lord   says—      the one who created the heavens,      the one who stretched them out,      the one who spread out the earth and its offspring,      the one who gave breath to its people   ...

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/?p=4382 Posted on April 2, 2014 by David Fitch — No Comments ↓ I’m privileged to present at the Slow Church Conference in Indianapolis this week. I love this conference . I love this theme. The title of my talk will be “A Slow Ecclesiology or a Fast Ecclesiology?: Why There is No Fast Ecclesiology in God’s Mission.” I’m bringing together some themes I’ve been working on and speaking about alot these past two years. This week, I will explore three points with the bulk of my time spent on the third point . Here they are: I. THE CHURCH IS A WAY OF LIFE EMBODIED (DEFINED BY) A SET OF PRACTICES.  As opposed to defining the church via some static descriptors (one, holy apostolic, catholic) or creedal boundaries, it is imperative (in a state of mission) that the church understand itself as a people submitted to a set of practices, which when practiced (and in practicing a people gathers to submit to Jesus as Lord in this ti...

https://www.facebook.com/ChrisSmithIndy?fref=ts February 25, 2014 By Christopher Smith 6 Comments There has been a lot of buzz online in recent days about the value of church attendance.  Initiated by a pair of posts by Donald Miller , ( The initial post … and the followup .), who bravely confessed that he rarely goes to church, Miller’s posts were followed up by this piece on Christianity Today’s PARSE blog , which dug a little deeper but had more of the feel of an expose, and didn’t get to the heart of what seems (to me anyway) to be the crucial issues about church. I appreciate Donald’s honesty — and Brian McLaren’s as well, in response to the PARSE piece — and I have no interest arguing for or against the positions that they described.  Rather, I want to tell my own story reflect on what we mean when we talk of church attendance or “going to church.” I grew up going to church, and continued to do so in college.  In fact, it was almost a necessity. ...

Pope Francis issues a call for Slow Church! August 5, 2013 By Christopher Smith Leave a Comment In a speech last week to the Bishops of Brazil, Pope Francis spoke eloquently about the timely need for Slow Church… Here’s a compelling excerpt from the speech: [ HT to Tim Ross for pointing my attention to this speech... ] “We are impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly, quietly. Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of the “night” contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem; a Church which realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return. But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture. Nothing is more lofty than the abasement of the Cross, since there we truly approach the heigh...

by C. Christopher Smith | December 2012 Why it's time for a conversation about Slow Church. IN SPRING 1986, a group of Italian activists led by Carlo Petrini launched a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s near the famous Spanish Steps in Rome. This protest marked the origin of the Slow Food movement, which has spread over the last 26 years to more than 150 countries. Following this Slow Food effort came a host of other Slow movements—Slow Cities, Slow Parenting, Slow Money, and more—that collectively raise opposition to the speed and industrialization of Western culture. Slow movements are beginning to recover what we have lost in our relentless pursuit of efficiency. Many Christians have been challenged by these Slow movements to consider the ways in which our faith has begun to move too fast as we make sacrifices to the gods of efficiency. This quest has sparked a renewed interest in the joys of shari...