The more I find out about the Slow Church movement, the more I like it. And I love the tagline on the site above: "Because you can't franchise the Kingdom of God."
This movement takes its cues from the Slow movements (especially the Slow Food movement) and applies those principles to the church. For instance, the basic virtues of the Slow Food movement are good, clean, and fair, which the Slow Church movement has translated to ethics (good), ecology (clean), and economy (fair). At it's essence, this movement seeks to bear witness to God's reconciliation of all things, and begins to answer that call through conversation around a shared table.
For more details and a fuller explanation, see the Slow Church blog (link above), and particularly the entry called The Slow Church Conversation. Regardless, I have a feeling that entering into this conversation might be leading me toward a conversion...to slow down the Church.
But as much as I like the theory behind this movement, I can't shake the practical questions. Would this actually work in a church (particularly a church in the South)? How would someone apply these principles in a parish ministry setting? How would this look, especially in a church whose Sunday morning schedule is built around an hour-long worship service, and whose congregants expect to be out in time to get a good spot in line at the local country-cooking place? In other words, How do we do Slow Church?
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