Product Description

It's a mustard seed world after all. The little things we do or fail to do have immense impact. Jesus understood this truth, and he prepared his followers to act on that understanding. Somewhere along the way, however, the enormity of our trouble-plagued world and the uncertainty lurking beyond our immediate horizon overwhelmed us. We shrank from such big problems and contented ourselves to live in isolation from one another. In the process, we cut ourselves off from God's conspiracy: our little acts of faith and compassion prepare the world for the great celebration God has planned for us.

In The New Conspirators, Tom Sine shares stories of churches and ministries that have planted hope in these troubled soils. With inimitable insight and delight, Sine gives us a picture of how this mustard seed generation is refashioning the world according to God's great vision.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30403 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Organized as a series of conversations, this book explores the lively edge of Christianity in the U.S. and the U.K. Sine, who wrote The Mustard Seed Conspiracy in the early 1980s, has always championed Christian subversives and exiles who act in small but significant ways to care for the poor and marginalized. This book begins by delineating four streams of Christian expression that greatly challenge the norms and assumptions of traditional churches. These streams—emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic—frequently flow into one another, and Sine does a fine job of defining them as separate but interdependent entities. Sine looks to these streams for tentative answers to several difficult questions, such as Did we get what it means to be a disciple wrong? and Did we get what it means to be the church wrong? As he explores these questions, Sine considers the context, particularly what he calls the global mall, in which the church must define and distinguish itself. Sine is unflinching in his assessment of Christian consumerism, but his tone is never angry. Rather, he exudes childlike enthusiasm as he shares example after example of Christians all over the world who are expressing their faith through profoundly countercultural acts of mercy, justice, love and compassion. (Mar.)
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Andy Harrington, executive director, Youth for Christ: Vancouver
"Tom Sine lays bare the church's Inconvenient Truth. Taking a broad overview of the challenges that we have to address in the twenty-first century, Tom has sounded a wake-up call that beckons us to reassess the way we have sold out to the values of modernity. Laying out an alternative future, this book is a bold challenge to all who think that the kingdom of God can be built from the starting point of compromise and comfort."

Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways and The Shaping of Things to Come (with Mike Frost), and founding director, Forge Mission Training Network
"This book is vintage Tom Sine: Always grounding us in the biblical narratives and never allowing us to domesticate our reading of them. Always highlighting the holistic nature of the gospel, never allowing us to diminish and privatize its reach. Always keen to highlight the role of the small and local but never allowing us to lose the global perspective of the kingdom. Always reminding us of the fundamentally communal nature of the faith but never for a moment diminishing our individual role and responsibility in God's plan of redemption. A great book from a great teacher and genuinely wise guide."

Customer Reviews

Conversations on fresh expressions in the global church
"In spite the fact that our world is changing at blinding speed and the church is going through some very tough times, God is still at work in ways that aren't always immediately apparent. For some reason, God seems to delight in conspiring through the small, insignificant and ordinary to renew the church and transform the world." - Tom Sine

This book was long due. Tom Sine spent 3+ years collecting stories, interviewing people, bugging friends and collecting the data that end up in this fantastic book.

You might have heard authors talk about books taking a life of their own, and that is true of this one. As a friend of Tom I was fortunate enough to be around while the book was taking shape. Originally it was meant to be a reincarnation of a his book The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, published in the mid-80's. But that would not hold up to the amazing stories of creativity and faith that Tom was listening. Tom later decided that this was meant to be an entire different book about the God's new conspirators in the here and now.

While many of the current books in the Christian circles cover one topic - Tom have ventured to explore what he calls in the book the 4 streams of renewal for the church and the world:
The Emerging Church
The Missional Church
New Monasticism
The Mosaic (Multi-Cultural) Church

Lots had and is written about the Emerging Church and Missional church. New Monasticism is a hot topic these days. So I am glad Tom included what the multi-cultural church is doing as a fresh and challenging expression in contemporary Christianity.

In this book Tom engage us in five conversations:

Taking the New Conspirators Seriously
Taking the Culture Seriously
Taking the Future of God Seriously
Taking the Turbulent Times Seriously
Taking our Imaginations Seriously

I think it is very important to point out that this is a book on a global expression of the new conspirators. The stories and examples does not come from the western hemisphere alone. This is not an American book. Though the book you'll read stories of ordinary people confronting the powers and living out God's Kingdom values in Africa, UK, Latin America, Australia, USA and all over the world.

encouragement for conspirators!
tom sine is one of the best, encouraging, honest voices to those who are committed to living out their faith in Jesus in new, creative ways. this material highlights that change is coming whether we like it or not and we need to consider our response as Christ-followers. what i like about "the new conspirators" is that it values a diversity of backgrounds/streams/callings and really asks the question "how are we willing to participate in advancing the kingdom of God in and for this next generation?" tom has been around a long time and continues to challenge all of us to keep listening for God, work toward reconciliation & restoration, be present in our neighborhoods, our communities, and be willing to go into uncharted territory for the sake of others. as a pastor & consummate dreamer, i felt less alone in our ministry and challenged & encouraged to keep re-imagining the future.

Read at Your Own Risk!
Tom Sine's book (www.thenewconspirators.com) is driven by a concern shared by many that Christians have unconsciously imbibed (and therefore, live by) secular notions of success and the good life. This is, of course, more and better of everything that we can get our hands on, without recognition of the cost it exacts on our lives and our world, and primarily, our understanding of Christ and his Kingdom. Thankfully though, Sine offers more than a robust and needed critique of the way the church has bought into the culture; he offers concrete, engaging, and stirring examples of how others are engaging the challenges he places before us.

The roads Sine shows us are appealing in both their distinctiveness and their common concern for knowing Jesus and serving the world in which we live, particularly the poorest among us. He does this by introducing his readers to four different movements that are, to over-simplify, doing church differently. He calls these movements the streams - monastic, mosaic, missional, and emergent - and the way he talks about them and the challenges they are confronting will leave you wanting to choose anything but the "global mall" faith that has become the norm for so many of us.

Through this book and a conference he recently held (www.thenewconspirators.wordpress.com) which I attended, Sine has challenged me to address the places in my life (and my paradigms) that have come to look more like the consumer culture than Christ's kingdom. In his role as co-founder of the Mustard Seed Associates (http://www.msainfo.org/) he has spent many years acting as a connector and catalyst for Christians who are seeking to re-imagine culture and faith expressions. In his book, and in the conference that MSA just held by the same name, Sine has utilized his many roles and talents as connector and author to offer us - to borrow Shane Claiborne's words - "a gift to the church," that is challenging, appealing, and ultimately, a must-read for those who are concerned with the ways Christianity has bought into the world's view of what makes for a good, satisfying, and fulfilling life - and particularly If you don't even know why your faith doesn't seem to make sense anymore.