"The New Conspirators"

I have just got up to date by adding the recent posts of material by Tom Sine that outline the four strands that will make up his new book: "The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time"  (February 2008, InterVarsity Press)

Tom Sine has always been an advocate of what he calls the Mustard Seed Conspiracy - relating to the parable of Jesus that says "the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Its starts small but grows into a huge tree in which all manner of animals find a home." He encourages people to start where they are; he avoids big talk and likes to get on with the small things.  He has seldom used the language of worldview and metanarrative and avoids any concept of the church taking over society,  though he is self-consciously aware of the irony of the parable he uses, that what begins small can become huge. I love his choice of the humble touch, the small, and his consistent choice to apply what he says rather than be the big name speaker he could be. (more remniscences of the Sines on the extension.)

Anyway the four strands he looks at (and the four posts below) are:

1. Emerging Church 
2. Consider Moving Mission to the Center
3. The Mosaic Stream
4. Modern Monasticism

I see these four streams as representing four aspects of church in our postmodern globalised world:

1. Emerging Church. Tom uses the phrase of Eddie Gibbs to define emerging church as “communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures.”   The focus here is on how to be church.
2. Missional church.  "Missional churches at their best shift their focus from creating programs to meet the needs of those within the building to equipping members to address the needs of those outside the building through word and deed mission."  In my terms this is about how the church relates to the world.
3. Mosaic Churches. These are multicultural churches that seek to reflect their cultural mix in terms of their structure, their spirituality, their worship and their lifestyle -- as well as the variety of colour of their members. I see this as how the church responds to the diversity of our culture and world.
4. New Monasticism.  Tom recounts how this stream is exploring "what it means to be disciples of Jesus, to be the church and to do the mission of the church" He notes that "Though the people involved in new monastic experiments tend to come from evangelical backgrounds, they are being drawn into the richness of the Catholic, Orthodox, Celtic and Anglican monastic traditions."  To me what really marks them then is an exploration of authentic Christian spirituality and lifestyle.

I love the overlap of these themes and the way they run together. For myself called to be a peacemaker, to take Christ's ministry of reconciliation to the church and the world, the theme of mosaic church fascinates me. Yet it touches so much on all the rest, and for me especially the nature of spirituality. I seek gentler, humbler, more gracious expressions of faith than I have known; to be able to express faith and even certainty without arrogance. 

Personal remniscence:  We have been acquainted with Tom Sine for many years, and more latterly his wife Christine -- since sometime in early 1984 if the association of time and place is accurate -- when Tom first came to the UK to research the British release of his first book, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy. He stayed with the community we were part of in London and gave a two day seminar. I found him immensley stimuating then as I have every other time I have heard him. The last time I sat and listened to him and Christine must have been nine years ago but I am still motivated by the fire lit in me that day.

I recently came across their Facebook group Mustard Seed Associates  a few weeks ago, and have been enriched once again by their thoughts. Christine inspires many through her contemporay liturgy, some of which are on her YouTube page, and her devotional writing and thoughts on her blog, Godspace.