The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time

I abolutely love it (and I believe God does as well) when believers who have been around for a while embrace, not criticize, what God is doing through a younger and emerging generation. Tom Sine, by his own admition, an aging author who is more modern than postmodern in style (pg. 28), is learning from a new generation, because he's not convinced that many older evangelical Christians got all the answers right. The questions he asks on pages 27 and 28 are right on - did we get our eschatology wrong? Did we get what it means to be a disciple wrong? Did we get what it means to be a steward wrong? Did we get what it means to be the church wrong? Did we get what it means to do mission wrong? His hope is "to provoke a serious conversation about what it means to follow Jesus in a changing world and a changing church" (pg. 28), and I think he succeeded in doing exactly that. Perhaps a bit redundant in just a few places, this is a well researched book that will make you think long and hard about what it means to be an effective follower of Christ in today's changing world.

In The New Conspirators Tom Sine, author of The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, discusses 4 movements occurring in today's Church; the monastic, mosaic, missional, and emerging. Sine does an excellent job describing the nuances and passions of each expression and it's an excellent book for people wondering what these new expressions of church are like. He also does a great job of exploring some of the issues the Church and Christians need to think about in our changing world. As a futurist, much of Sine's job is to think and plan for what is ahead and he does a good job of exploring both challenges and opportunities. I was very impressed with this book and Sine's humility in describing what faces our church and world. He is obviously a man of passion and loves to help prepare us for what lies ahead.

Ok, we always suspected that there were not easy answers, no one fix for the spiritual angst and restlessness that confronts us as we jostle through our culture listening to bits and pieces from people's stories. I assume most people, like myself, want to be invited into the conversation, though, and want to find a way to bring God along without the religious baggage. Jesus unencumbered. Sine's book gives us the handles we need to do just that. It's cool that he doesn't champion one theory or push one particular method, but instead reports what God seems to be doing in spite of us among those who want to get their hands dirty in ministry and those to whom the traditional image of the church has lost appeal. I was really pumped and challenged to learn in The New Conspirators what God is doing through this new generation of innovators and risk takers that really seems to make a difference in their world. I like the sense of honoring the smaller things, the things that don't get the headlines or get marketed in a 12 disc DVD series. The New Conspirators is the first book I have found that not only focuses broadly on the emerging stream but on the missional, mosaic {multicultural church planters), and the monastic streams as well. I was moved not only by the imaginative new models of community, celebration, and mission these young conspirators are creating but also the meaty questions they are raising for all of us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, be the church, live responsibly, and do mission. The New Conspirators is a wonderfully balanced book of information and insight. It's both prophetic and practical. As a pastor in a traditional church that is morphing into a missional community, I read Tom's insights and observations with fear and trembling. If we follow where God seems to be leading, there will be blood. The death of unexamined assumptions has to happen to find the spiritual foundation on which to change the way we think about God's Kingdom and the communities through which it grows. The New Conspirators address that fear and calms it somewhat by demonstrating that God's works through small mustard seeds to engineer large vision. Cool, Eh? I think so. I'm bringing my copy to all my board meetings! Stan Thornburg

We have journeyed a mere eight years into the third millennium, and the church is facing a profound crisis of relevance. Do we have anything to offer a creation that is groaning in travail? Tom Sine speaks to this crisis when he asks the question, "Does the future have a church?" "The New Conspirators" is his hope-filled answer. Tom offers convincing evidence that, yes, the future does indeed have a church. It just doesn't look the same as it used to. The church of the third millennium is not a church of "bricks and mortar." It is a church of "poets, monks, clowns, prophets and other conspirators" who are sowing seeds of redemptive compassion throughout the world. These "small, small seeds" are sprouting, growing, and bringing new life and new hope to our groaning world. In these pages, Tom Sine has assembled a compelling collection of stories of people of faith who are living out the good news of the kingdom of God in their lives. Through their stories, he reminds us that God really does love this world, and more importantly, God is fully invested in redeeming it. These new conspirators of hope are the evidence that God is indeed at work in the world, and Tom Sine invites us to become a part of this divine movement. This book is particularly good news for those whose souls are aching under the weight of the shallow, trivial, and mundane. It is a book for those who are hungering and thirsting for something of substance in the unsatisfying realm of virtual reality. It is a book for those who want to spend their lives on something that will endure the test of time.

Tom Sine captures what many who have focused exclusively on one or another "stream" in the current context of the church have missed: the incredible diversity and creativity of various movements within modern Christianity. If you want a picture of the best of what the church has to offer the world not only today, but into the future, you should start at the frontier, which is where Tom has taken us. Since Mustard Seed Conspiracy through Mustard Seed Vs. McWorld and now in the New Conspirators Sine has kept his finger on the pulse of that place where church meets and engages culture in new and exciting ways. This is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of the church in a global, post-Christian world.