The Virtue of Dialogue: Conversation as a Hopeful Practice of Church Communities [Kindle Edition]

C. Christopher Smith (Author)

Book Description

Englewood Christian Church was once a thriving mega-church, but like the neighborhood surrounding it on Indianapolis' east side, the church spiraled downward for decades in the face of widespread economic decline.

Today, Englewood--both church and community--are thriving again. Not that ECC has restored its mega-church status, but this church of 200 is having an impact that far outweighs its numbers and that upends the received wisdom about how churches work best. This story of recovery is about moving away from status symbols of success and finding a new path to strengthening and deepening community ties and creating contexts for human flourishing.

Can a modest church sustain a city? Can it foment social change simply by encouraging people to talk and listen to one another? C. Christopher Smith says that it can, and in this brief but extraordinary ebook, he shares his church's story of discovering the surprising and powerful virtue of conversation.

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Praise for C. Christopher Smith's "The Virtue of Dialogue"

"'The Virtue of Dialogue' is filled with hope and possibility, even for today's hemorrhaging and puzzled Church. Chris reminds us that in our world of culture wars and stale debates, civil dialogue is an endangered art. Here is a wonderful and simple call to real community and to honest dialogue."

Shane Claiborne, author of "Jesus for President" and "The Irresistible Revolution"

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"There is something very 1st Century about Englewood, and there's also something very postmodern -- that's because Englewood is seeking to be missional, not by theorizing about it but by actually doing it. Where they began is where we all need to begin: with conversation. We must face one another in a listening mode. Only then can our words become genuine conversation. This little book could be revolutionary for your own faith community."

Scot McKnight, author of "The King Jesus Gospel" and "Junia Is Not Alone"

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"There is no question that Americans are becoming increasingly polarized in civic discourse. In 'The Virtue of Dialogue,' Chris Smith offers an alternative way of talking to each other that opens a window of hope for a way forward and is rooted in his community’s lived experience."

Sean Gladding, author of "The Story of God, the Story of Us"

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"The story of the Englewood Christian Church is a compelling one, not because it's unusual (which it is), but because it narrates a story of church rebirth many people are experiencing under the radar of the 'success-driven' U.S. Christian establishment. Beautifully written, stunningly simple, this piece by Chris Smith gives hope for all those working in churches in the midst of long decline. To you who are looking for a way forward that is different from the latest mega church conference, I urge you to read this little book."

David Fitch, B.R. Lindner Professor of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary, author of "The End of Evangelicalism?"

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"In these brief but inspiring pages, Chris Smith offers the wider Church a vital service. By narrating for us the story of how one seemingly unremarkable congregation stumbled into the life-giving and service-spawning practice of conversation, Smith gives us hope that the Church might again become a community capable of honest, full-bodied dialogue. In so doing, he makes a powerful case for why congregational conversation should be regarded as one of the primary means the Spirit uses to help us imagine and discern together God’s will for our common life."

Philip Kenneson, Professor of Theology at Milligan College, author of "Life on the Vine"

Product Details

• File Size: 144 KB
• Print Length: 37 pages
• Publisher: Patheos Press (January 24, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0071EY8KG
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #378,902 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth well more than I paid! January 31, 2012

By H. Kim

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

After seeing several people whose opinions I deeply respect tweet about Chris Smith's book, I had to check it out for myself, especially as I am deeply interested in the question of how a church can change its underlying culture and systems and transform into a missional community. This is not just an academic exercise for me, but a very real and present question, as I have been wrestling with how this type of change actually works itself out in reality.

So I bought the book, intending to just skim its contents, but I was immediately drawn into the story that Chris quite effectively and efficiently presents about Englewood Christian Church. Although I initially found myself skeptical that conversations were the missing link to church-wide and ultimately community renewal; what I quickly learned and am still chewing on is the idea that before a church can truly exude a missional presence in its community, it needs to experience reconciliation within itself as a body of Christ.

I'm thankful for the book and the combination of narrative and practical ideas it presents. Highly recommend for those pondering how churches can make the transition to becoming an incarnational community.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In Praise of Messy Community March 16, 2012

By Alexander Joyner

Format:Kindle Edition

As a pastor of a congregation in a changing neighborhood, I would love to have a parishioner like C. Christopher Smith. In his brief new book, The Virtue of Dialogue, Smith, the editor of the Englewood Review of Books, details the transition that his church took from being an old-line megachurch on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis to being a congregation of people journeying with their transitioning community into a new form of being church. In the process, Smith reveals a level of respect and love for his sometimes difficult congregation that any church leader would envy.

As the title of the book suggests, however, this is not simply a tribute to Englewood Christian Church, it is primarily a call to conversation as a primary Christian practice and a means of reformation. As Smith narrates the process by which a flailing congregation moved to supporting businesses and housing projects in a neighborhood transformation, he gives credit to simple dialogue. "How is it that this modest church of about 200, a failed mega-church that spiraled downward with the neighborhood, has come to help orchestrate these strains of change?...the short answer is that we learned to talk to each other" (5).

Beginning in 1997 the church began a series of Sunday night conversations around issues of interest to those who came. In a circle of chairs, facilitated by a skilled and provocative lay leader, some messy, fertile interactions began to happen. "Our conversation in those earliest years was extraordinarily volatile," Smith says. "People frequently got angry and yelled at others; some would get up and walk out" (10). But enough people stayed committed to the circle that new ideas began to emerge and new actions began to grow.

Now the church is at the center of a neighborhood renaissance with an unusual collection of initiatives. A daycare and preschool, a bookkeeping business, a landscaping operation, and Smith's own book-related ventures all took root in the church. But the operation about which he is most eager to share is the affordable housing initiative which led the congregation to buy an abandoned public school and to renovate it into a mixed-income rental housing property. According to Smith, all of these efforts enable a continuing weeklong conversation that leads to new projects and stronger community.

As a United Methodist, I admire the way that Smith and the Englewood Sunday circle have discovered a form of conversation which shares a kindred spirit with John Wesley's conferencing. In a culture that seems to have no time for difficult social interactions carried out face-to-face, the deepening community at Englewood is a witness to the continuing power of distinctly Christian modes of being in the world. Smith acknowledges this by calling this kind of dialogue "Eucharistic," marked by the "radical self-denial that defined the life and death of Jesus and that we remember in the celebration of the Eucharist" (21).

The Virtue of Dialogue is no naive celebration of bloodless harmony; it is born of a particular community's patient practice over many years of the ways of Christian community. Though he offers no concrete guide for how groups might take this journey in other contexts, Smith extends an invitation for other struggling congregations to fall in love with their communities and to return to the discipline of shared conversation. In this short, hope-filled treatise, Smith combats the narrative of decline by reminding us that the quality of Christian communal life is defined more by how it exists in the world than by how well it mirrors the cultural indicators of success. As Stanley Hauerwas says, in a quote Smith uses to preface his work, "People that are together to be together, that's just another name for hell, as Sartre well understood. You never are together [simply] to be together, you're together because you have something you want to do, work that [needs to be done]" (2).

*all page notations are from the electronic edition
review originally appeared in Catapult magazine: [...], 16 March 2012

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Conversation Through Brokenness February 29, 2012

By Sam Edgin

Format:Kindle Edition

When Chris Smith, in The Virtue of Dialogue, steps into the story of his hurt and fracturing congregation sitting down in a circle to simply talk to each other I feel both very excited and very apprehensive. Churches need this, yes. Talking, fighting, working things out, these are all parts of a healthy relationship. I know this, and yet I still get a shooting fear rising up within me: we can't do that! People will get mad at each other. They will yell and blame us and leave the church and then we'll have even less money! It was then that I realized how broken my own Christianity was.
This is where Chris' new e-book triumphs. Englewood commits to having a regular conversation about issues weighed down with tension, and they carry on through everything rough. He admits that it was not the easiest thing to do at the beginning. The section where he explains some of the reasoning behind this is excellent:

"What would have been a tense conversation anyway was amplified by the deep fragmentation of our recent history. Like so many Western churches, we had nurtured a culture of individualized faith. Thus, when we gathered the individuals of our church community for conversation, they brought with them not only a divergent array of theological, social, and political convictions, but also deep emotional attachment to these convictions. Additionally, we found ourselves part of a broader culture that was rapidly losing the capacity for conversation..."

All of these things and more made the conversation quite messy. Chris says that people yelled, walked out, and even left the church. All of the initial fears I had about meeting for dialogue were right there. They all happened to Englewood, and there's no way it was pleasant to participate in.
Yet they survived. And now they are one of the best examples of intentional Christian community that I know of - at least from what I have seen. Their conversation, as terse as it might have been, caused them to grow closer as the body. This, in turn, enabled them to fully recognise their part within Christ's mission in their community. In order to get to this point they had to endure a lot of pain formed mostly through volatile arguments and people deciding it was best for them to leave.
This is vital for a church community. It is one of the most powerful steps that we can take towards healing our brokenness, even though it can seem counterproductive. After all, the community is trading a certain social pain for another, more intense and blatant, and it is still risking people walking out the door and never coming back.
However, I think the brokenness that leads to that first type of pain, the brokenness that causes people to threaten to leave when they are just upset, goes a bit deeper than our problem with churches fracturing. The splits we hear about or experience are a symptom of a much larger issue. We, despite all of our talk concerning love and community, really have no idea how to really love or to live intentionally with each other. In The Virtue of Dialogue Chris explains that the Englewood community found themselves finally learning how to really love each other after years of painful conversations, even though such an achievement was not even something they were looking for.

This is an excerpt, the full version can be found here: [...]

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