The Book
A reflection drawn from experience and observation
Slow Work of Trust explores why trust has eroded and how it can be repaired through understanding, character, reliability. Repair requires disciplined listening, honest confession, and patient work. The work will be slow and incredibly important.
Timely look at a issue of our time.
In readers’ words
Dennis Shaw has written a wise and timely book that focuses our attention on how trust is formed, sustained, and recovered. It helps us understand the variety of grammars current in our American culture and the ways in which trust, communication, and cooperation are lost by speaking past one another and defending our own perspectives while separation and alienation grow and become entrenched on both a personal and societal level. Beyond helping us understand how we become separated and polarized, Shaw directs our attention to and charts pathways by which trust can be restored, not by quick fixes or imagined vindication of our own views, but by the patient work of trust that must be rebuilt and practices that must be altered to make this possible. This book would reward both individual and group study by those who would chart a different pathway than the competing practices that now plague and divide us.
Bruce Birch, Dean Emeritus, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C.
At a time when so much of our public conversation focuses on everything that divides us, Dennis Shaw invites us to look beneath those divisions to something even more fundamental: trust. What I appreciate most about the Slow Work of Trust is that Shaw does not offer an easy formula or suggest that trust can be restored simply by getting people to agree with one another. Instead, he asks a more personal and challenging question: What does it mean to become a trustworthy person? … I especially appreciated his insistence that understanding another person does not require agreement, but does require the willingness to truly see and hear them … Shaw reminds us that rebuilding trust is not quick work or easy work. It is the patient work of becoming people whose character, words, and actions give others reason to trust us.
Patty Walker, Pastor, Prairie United MEthodist Church, Colorado Springs
This is a great book. It provides insights about how we arrive in various situations and how we react, and why we act like we do. Important and timely.
John Ward, Retired US Army and Lockheed Martin, Dallas, Texas
This timely read encouraged me to examine my own innate moral compass and worldview, its strengths and the blind spots I may have when relating to people with differing views, strongly voiced opinions and hurtful actions. Highly recommended.
Deirdre Slocum, Fitness Coach, Montreal, Canada
About the Author
Written from decades of practice and service
Dennis Shaw has spent his life in roles where people rely on one another, serving more than twenty-three years on active duty in the U.S. Army and later two decades as a United Methodist pastor. His work centers on trust and community, and he and his wife, Marilyn, now make their home in West Virginia.
Classes
Learning together, coming soon
Three free resources are being developed to help you explore the slow work of trust in community: a secular four-week study, a religious four-week study, and a book-club reading guide. These structured, unhurried materials are expected to begin becoming available around November 1. Stay connected to hear when each one is ready.
Get Book
Begin the slow work
A patient, thoughtful guide to building trust — one small, consistent gesture at a time. Bring it home and start where you are.
Stay Connected
Updates
Occasional reflections on trust and access to classes and events.
