If McDonaldized church makes the case for increased efficiency, calculability, predictability and control, Slow Church makes "the case for taste"--specifically the case for "the taste of the place," and for "faste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8). Taste is the most intimate of the five senses. Seeing allows us to experience something from a great distance. Think of the vast expanse of land, water and sky--technically called a viewshed--visible to the human eye from the top of a hill. Though our sense of hearing is not as far reaching as our sense of sight, we are still able to hear a crack of thunder or bells in a church steeple. Our range of smell is even closer. Touch closes the gap completely. We know that human touch is vital to physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, but it is still only surface to surface. Taste goes deeper. As Brother David Steindle-Rast, a Benedictine monk, has written, "Tasting what dissolves on our tongue dissolves the barriers between subject and object. What we have tasted we know 'inside out.'" Thus to come to know the taste of a place is to blur the line between ourselves and the other. It thwarts the forces of alienation. As I become part of my place it becomes part of me.
John Pattison, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus
