Creating the Future, One Mustard Seed at a Time (The New Conspirators)

PatJuly 13, 2008

“The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time” (Tom Sine)

I’ve just finished reading Tom Sine’s newest book, “The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time” (Tom Sine). It’s one that I’ve meant to read for a few months. However, having now finished it, I highly recommend it and want to do a relatively thorough summary of the book here. It’s fantastic.

You may or may not know Tom’s name. Tom and Christine Sine are Seattle area folks who direct the Mustard Seed Associates, an organization devoted to engaging the church in emerging culture. What I love about the Sines - not having met them, but growing a friendship with their associate and housemate, Eliacin Rosario Cruz, is that they’re speaking from decades of experience about a spirituality that I think is important and can truly be lived, not just discussed. Their way has whiffs of emerging church, new monasticism, creation care and Celtic spirituality, but it’s got larger aromas of God’s Kingdom among the poor and at the future edge of social change.

The book is organized broadly into five “conversations” (which functionally are chapter clusters). Broadly speaking, Tom begins and ends with discussion of the forms of churches which are emerging in contemporary culture, and in the middle of those markers he discusses emerging culture with a global perspective.

The first conversation labels four new streams of church that are arriving in recent days: emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic. Emerging churches are those intentionally seeking to serve the postmodern context and are described similarly to those in “Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures” (Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger). Missional churches are birthed out of missional theology in the vein of Lesslie Newbigin and their leaders are more often seminary trained and focused on multiculturalism than those in the emerging churches. Mosaic churches are intentionally focused on multiculturalism, are often urban, and often are not focused on the postmodern context. Monastic communities are often not focused on church planting and typically are comprised of people older than those in the other streams. Monastic communities are more focused on living among the poor and living a community based spirituality 24×7.

The second conversation is about taking the culture seriously. It examines the post-9/11 world, the development of a global youth culture and economy. It continues by challenging the reader to look at consumerism and the messages we get of what ‘the good life’ is, and how that differs from the reality of God’s Kingdom.

The third conversation is about taking the future of God seriously. It looks at Biblical and cultural imagery of homecoming and the in breaking Kingdom of God into today’s world, which we can live into now.

The fourth conversation is taking turbulent times seriously. Contemporary churches must plan for a changing future, not the continuation of the present. We have to anticipate change, even if we’re incorrect about were we think that change will end up. We have to live a different future with respect to care of creation and bridging the gap between global rich and global poor. We must give those in the middle ways to deal with soaring housing, healthcare costs and encourage them to aim for serviced, not for wealth. Globally, including in the West, the poor are getting poorer, squeezed by housing and healthcare costs, and wages which are no longer livable. We can equip individuals and communities to lift the poor out of poverty. And the community of nations can and must help the global poor out of their poverty. The Christian church can re-imagine its role in culture and make deep impact in these turbulent times.

The fifth conversation is taking our imaginations seriously. We can imagine a different church making a different impact on a different culture. Beginning by examining the Scriptures for God’s description of ‘the good life’, we create ways to shape God’s good life in our lives and world. We purposely, prayerfully live abundant lives. We re-imagine economic stewardship as not serving institutions, but serving the needy. We re-imagine Christian community as a whole-life, holistic family system which intentionally spends time and energy together and in whole-hearted mission. We shape our lives and our church communities for mission. And we ask God to ignite our creativity and imagination.

I read this book at the right time in my life. For several months, I’m feeling a deep call to live simply and authentically. I am more globally aware and related than I ever have been, and it is this connection that gives me perspective on my own life and mission. I am deeply impacted by the way that Tom describes our challenges and the hope that God brings as we break out of old patterns and allow Him to blow through us for the sake of His creation - nature and humanity. I highlighted the daylights out of pages for the fifth conversation, and in the stories that Tom tells of Christians and churches who are creatively doing the work of the Kingdom I find deep joy, life and hope.

My quibbles with the book are few. While I like Tom’s taxonomy of the four streams of churches, I’m not sure that ‘missional’ is really distinct from the other three - in fact, I think emerging churches are really just missional to postmodern peoples; mosaic churches are missional in a multiethnic way, and monastic are missional in community and especially among the poor. I suppose that there are simply missional-missional churches (if you get what I mean by that), but mission shapes the other three forms deeply.

I also found myself going into statistical overload in the well-detailed middle section of the book. The future arriving before our eyes is deeply different than our present, and the difference between global rich and global poor is astounding - but my eyes began to glaze over at the reality of what we’re facing in coming days.

But those minor details aside, I highly recommend this book for anybody who’s feeling unsettled with the way things are today, and looking for a different future in partnership with God. Beware, though - it’s impossible to read this book and not totally re-examine your own place in the world and in the family of God.

Posted in Celtic, Family |
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A Celtic Prayer for Donating Blood

PatJuly 12, 2008

I love the everyday-ness of Celtic prayers that can be found in collections like Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) . When you have a Christian spirituality that has prayers for milking cows, for giving birth, for putting on the hot water, you’re in my world.

Today I donated blood. I thought it would be good to pray a Celtic prayer for the blood donation process. It went something like this, and I’d love for commenters to improve :-)

Pierced for our transgressions

You brought life to me and mine

May this piercing

bring life to others

for the sake of a healed world

Posted in Celtic, Faith |
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Missionary Model: St. Aidan of Lindisfarne (Late on the Missional Synchroblog bandwagon)

PatJune 23, 2008

Today, Monday June 23 is a “What Is Missional?” Syncroblog event. I didn’t get signed up in time to be on the official roll call list, but that doesn’t stop me from tagging along at the end anyway :-)

I’ve written a lot here about what the missional church (or mission-shaped church) is, and rather than summarize all those things, or try to push in a new direction, I decided just to tell a story. This story is actually a pair of smaller stories about one of my favorite Celtic saints, Aidan of Lindisfarne. I’ll leave analysis of the story, application and implications up to you, the reader.

The story of Aidan fits well into our topic today, I think. On the northeastern coast of England is Northumbria, tribal warfare reigned in the AD600’s, and kings were killed in battle. Oswald, heir to the Northumbrian throne fled to Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, where he met the monks there and converted to Christianity. When word came to Oswald that it was safe for him to return home, he did, and then sent back to Iona for missionary monks to bring the Gospel to the Northumbrians.

Iona first sent a delegation under the leadership of Corman, who met with miserable failure and retreated to Iona with his tail between his legs. At the team meeting discussing the failed mission, the historian Bede writes that Corman said that the Angles of Northumbria “‘were ungovernable and of an obstinate and barbarous temperament”. A young monk, Aidan, spoke up, saying that Corman should perhaps have begun more simply, giving them spiritual milk instead of meat as Paul might say, and that Corman had been too aggressive in his mission and his expectations.

Whether the Iona monks received this word from Aidan as spiritual wisdom or as the brashness of a young punk monk is unknown, but they immediately commissioned Aidan a bishop to Northumbria, and sent him with twelve other monks to Oswald’s people.

Aidan set up base on the island of Lindisfarne, which was within eyesight of Oswald’s castle. Aidan’s Irish style monastery was simple in architecture and design, and he taught the local laypeople to fast from food and to study the Scriptures. Aidan himself fasted from food twice a week and rarely ate at the royal table, even though his relationship with Oswald was excellent.

AIdan worked tirelessly in the surrounding countryside, building relationships with the local people and individually nurturing their faith. He nearly always walked from place to place.

When he encountered people, he engaged them in conversation, asking them to tell him what they believed. Only when invited to share his own beliefs would he respond.

His simplicity of lifestyle was recognized by his peers and by historians as well. When served a feast, he would give food to the poor. When his monastery was given money for support, he would use it to buy freedom for slaves in the local slaving village and then offer to teach the redeemed slaves how to read. Many of these freed slaves continued to live in Aidan’s monastery or entered the priesthood.

One of the best known stories of Aidan’s focus came when King Oswald’s successor, Oswin, gave Aidan a fine mare from the royal stables as a gift. The mare was intended to ease Aidan’s travels and make him more efficient in his evangelization of Northumbria. Aidan received the horse, and promptly gave it to the first poor family that he met on the road. Oswin heard this story and enraged, confronted Aidan.

The historian Bede tells us of the encounter:

“The King asked the bishop as they were going in to dine, ‘My Lord Bishop, why did you give away the royal horse which was necessary for your own use? Have we not many less valuable horses or other belongings which would have been good enough for beggars, without giving away a horse that I had specifically selected for your personal use?’ The bishop at once answered, ‘What are you saying, Your Majesty? Is this child of a mare more valuable to you than this child of God?’”

King Oswin in humility agreed with Aidan and said that he would never again challenge how Aidan spent his resources in service to the poor.

You can read more about Aidan of Lindisfarne at IrelandsEye, St. Aidan’s Church in Malibu, CA, or Wikipedia.

A few brief thoughts stir in me when I think about St. Aidan of Lindisfarne. One is that Aidan knew intuitively that individuals understood the Gospel at different levels, and faith should be nurtured carefully in order to grow. Another is that Aidan, with access to kings and their networks, carefully remained unentangled by political power. He let the power of the Gospel developed in personal relationships over decades transform the kingdom, not kingly decrees. And Aidan spent his time and his resources wisely, aggressively and subversively. Aidan did not care about efficiency, but modeled incarnational mission and all the inefficiencies that this implies.

In an age of mega churches in which pastors don’t know the large majority of attendees’ names - or may not even step foot into a video venue, the personal discipleship of Aidan’s approach through deep relationship is a powerful model.

How effective was Aidan? The monks of Lindisfarne were directly responsible for the conversion of the Angles and the Saxons to Christianity. It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that Aidan converted England with this approach to mission.

Ah well, enough ancient history. Please go read the others participating in today’s missional synchroblog.

Alan Hirsch Alan Knox Andrew Jones Barb Peters Bill Kinnon Brad Brisco Brad Grinnen Brad Sargent Brother Maynard Bryan Riley Chad Brooks Chris Wignall Cobus Van Wyngaard Dave DeVries David Best David Fitch David Wierzbicki DoSi Doug Jones Duncan McFadzean Erika Haub Grace Jamie Arpin-Ricci Jeff McQuilkin John Smulo Jonathan Brink JR Rozko Kathy Escobar Len Hjalmarson Makeesha Fisher Malcolm Lanham Mark Berry Mark Petersen Mark Priddy Michael Crane Michael Stewart Nick Loyd Patrick Oden Peggy Brown Phil Wyman Richard Pool Rick Meigs Rob Robinson Ron Cole Scott Marshall Sonja Andrews Stephen Shields Steve Hayes Tim Thompson Thom Turner

Missional Synchroblog What Is Missional? Missional Community

Posted in Celtic, Faith |
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Following the Celtic Trail wordle

PatJune 22, 2008

On a whim, I created a Wordle for my whole paper for the Following the Celtic Trail course for my D. Min at Bakke Graduate University. Click through for best effect, and go create some wordles for yourself.