Random thoughts about the introduction to the book Slow Church, which I'm slowly reading and sharing thoughts about online.:

Ritzer identified four dimensions of McDonaldization: efficiency, predictability, calculability (quantifiable results) and control.

Let me start off with calculability. I often bristle at the ideas that the only things that matter is what is calculable. When I think about calculability, Ephesians 3 comes to mind

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Likewise, when I think of predictability, the old phrase, “How do you make God laugh? Make plans.” comes to mind. Much of my focus for this year is to seek the unexpected.

I have more room in my life for efficiency and self-control.

The principles of the Slow Food movement are good, clean and fair. We’ve reimagined them here as ethics, ecology and economy.

As I think about economy, I think of Thoreau’s Walden. How does Thoreau’s economy relate to the economy of Slow Church? I suspect there is an important relationship there.

So, on the one hand, I feel predisposed to like the book. Yet at the same time, I am cautious. I think of a quote from Siddhartha, to the effect that no one gains enlightenment by following another person’s teaching. I think of The Life of Brian, where Brian tells the gathered crowd, “You are all individuals”, and they all chant back, in unison, “We are all individuals.”

I think of a great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”

It all leads me back to a favorite Psalm:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.

So, I’m looking forward to see to what extent this book will help me, and others to “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”.