The New Conspirators: The Mosaic Stream

by Tom Sine, Mustard Seed Associates

“In the UK, more churches were planted in the last seven years than Starbucks were opened–over 1,000 churches compared to only 750 Starbucks coffee shops. Interestingly, most of these church plants were ethnic and multi-cultural.

“God is doing something through a new generation, as I report in The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed At a Time, which will be published by IVP in 2008. I believe God is working through at least four streams: the emerging church, missional churches, mosaic church plants and the monastic movement. This issue of the Seed Sampler will attempt to describe what God is doing through those in the mosaic stream, which I define as multicultural church plants. While the emerging and missional leadership is overwhelmingly male and white, in this stream, God is doing something new through leaders from a number of different cultures.”

Read the whole article here.

The New Conspirators: Seed Smile–”Caucasian Adventures”

Attention gamers! Members of the Story Games Discussion Boards attempted to develop a game called Caucasian Adventures, highlighting White Privilege in the style of the overly exaggerated, superficial and simplistic culture-themed RPGs (role-playing games–think Dungeons & Dragons). Below is a map submitted for consideration.

The New Conspirators: Liturgy–Community (Thursday Evening)

by Christine Sine, Mustard Seed Associates

God who is community come to us this night.

Embrace us in your love,

Unite us with your spirit,

Make us one in you.

(silence)

God of all creation you come to us in community,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

Perfect relationship, perfect community

Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, you come

The three in one, the one in three

You offer us community

That together we might grow spiritually

And become mature in Jesus Christ

We need your community

To keep us accountable to your call

For we are called to serve one another

We need your community

To equip and develop your Holy Spirit gifts

So that we can build one another up

We need your community

For prayer and encouragement

For fellowship and festivity, for worship of you

We need your community

To witness to your all-inclusive love

For only in community are we made whole

One people together, family of the living God

Click here to read the whole liturgy.

The New Conspirators: Seed Share–Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis

by Pastor Efrem Smith

Sanctuary Covenant Church is an example of a Mosaic church plant that has created a richly multicultural community learning to share the gifts of God’s kingdom across the boundaries of race and class. The church is becoming a living, breathing model of the new family that Jesus was intent on creating. As you will see, one of their distinguishing characteristics is the focus outward on the needs of the people in the urban community of which they are a part in Minneapolis. The pastor of this innovative church plant, Efrem Smith, is also a co-author of the important book The Hip Hop Church. He will be joining us at MSA’s New Conspirators Conference at the end of February to share the story of Sanctuary Covenant.

Click here to read the profile of Sanctuary Covenant.

The New Conspirators: Seed Share–Quest Church in Seattle

by Pastor Eugene Cho

Quest Church in Seattle is an innovative multicultural church plant in Seattle that reaches out to their community in creative ways with both word and deed mission. It started in 2000 as a coffee shop called Q Cafe, and recently merged with Interbay Covenant Church, which was next door. Pastor Eugene Cho raises important questions on his blog about everything from race and racialization to the recent crisis in Burma. Eugene will be speaking at our conference next February.

Click here to read the profile of Quest.

The New Conspirators: Seed Share–Racism Is In the Eye of the Beholder

by David Park, Next Gener.Asian Church

“Racism is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t say this as a cute turn of phrase–I mean it in the sense of a well-known parable: you may call it a speck or a plank, but I assure you, it’s in your eye. The problem with racism is that we see what we want to see, but what we fail to see is how it affects our sight. Rather than acknowledge real differences in ethnicity and race, we choose to turn a blind eye to it as though plucking our eyes out would prevent the sin altogether. In our haste for the kingdom come, we gloss over tainted histories and plant quasi-innovative churches in the belief that good doctrine and right worship together will solve our differences. But don’t you see? We’ve been trying that for hundreds of years already.”

Read the whole article here.

The New Conspirators: Seed Share–Emerging Women

by Julie Clawson, co-pastor of Via Christus Community Church, Chicago

This month’s Seed Sampler is about the Mosaic stream of renewal, multicultural church plants that actively strive for ethnic diversity and reconciliation. One of the main themes of this stream is inclusivity, being welcoming to and affirming of people different from ourselves.

As an extension of that theme of inclusivity, we include this article on gender in the greater emerging church. Just as people of different races and cultures should gather together and seek understanding, so should men and women. You might be asking yourself, “Isn’t the church done with that? Haven’t women found equality in the church?” In come cases, yes, but as you will read in this article, in more cases, no.

This article is adapted from Julie Clawson’s personal blog, OneHandClapping. She is also an administrator and regular contributor to the Emerging Women blog.

Read the article here.

The New Conspirators: Mosaic Resources

Tom Sine’s “Mosaic” Book List–download it here

Ethnic Harvest, www.ethnicharvest.org

Latino Leadership Circle, latinoleadershipcircle.typepad.com

Musings of a Postmodern Negro, postmodernegro.com

Next Gener.Asian Church, nextgenerasianchurch.com

Emerging Women, emergingwomen.blogspot.com

djchuang.com

Warren St. John, “As the World Comes to Georgia, an Old Church Adapts,” The New York Times (Septmeber 22, 2007), p. A1. Read the article online here.

Jonathan Petre, “Pentecostals spearhead big rise in new churches,” Telegraph (February 27, 2006), accessed October 16, 2007, here.

Mark R. Francis, “Models for Multicultural Liturgy,” accessed October 17, 2007, here.

Multicultural Liturgy Resources, www.fdlc.org/Liturgy_Resources/LITURGY_&_CULTURE.htm

Duke Center for Reconciliation, Duke Divinity School, www.divinity.duke.edu/reconciliation

John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership Training, and Community Development, www.spu.edu/depts/jperkins

Living Mosaic Church, Burlington, Ontario, www.livingmosaicchurch.com

Madison Square Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan, www.madisonsquarechurch.org

You are Invited!

House Concert with Tracy Howe of the Restoration Village

Host: Mustard Seed Associates
When? Saturday, November 3, 2007 – 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Where? Shafer-Baillie Mansion 907 14th Ave E Seattle, WA

Contact: mail@msainfo.org

Description:
Come for a concert at the Shafer Baillie Mansion in Capitol Hill to benefit Mustard Seed Associates and the Restoration Village.

Suggested donation: $10

About Tracy Howe and the Restoration Project:

RestorationVillage.com is the home to Tracy Howe, The Restoration Project, and the individuals and communities knit together around them. The Restoration Project is a vision of musical and artistic partnership. It is founded upon the eternal hope of a loving creator and a belief that artists able to express anything about this hope and creator become a vehicle for spiritual and relational restoration.

Tracy Howe, visionary and lead artist of the group, was born in Boulder, CO and now live in a small mountain town called Woodland Park, CO. She was classically trained on the piano from the age of five and began writing music by the time she was 12. Her first two albums were recorded during her college years in a basement studio. Aaron Strumpel, native of rural Iowa and currently residing in Boulder, CO, traveled with Tracy from 2002-2006. Aaron is now an accomplished solo artist and worship leader, and remains an important foundational part of The Restoration Project.

Tracy began traveling full time in 2000. It was not so much her ambition or desire for rock stardom that led her to book her first tour, but a desire to connect with people. Three years and 400 shows later, her vision was refined and she was more focused than ever on bringing hope to broken people through music and relationship. Because of her desire to serve people and communities in the margins, The Restoration Project became a 501 (c ) 3 nonprofit in 2003 and “Restoration Village” was launched as a platform to share the resources and relationships gained through years of partenrship and touring.

The Restoration Project traveled under the radar of industry and pop culture. Without the attention of media the group played on nearly 100 university campuses in 40 different states relying on relationships and new listeners to keep them moving forward. In 2005 the band was selected out of thousands of artists for the national NACA showcase (National Association for Colleges and Activities), the largest college booking showcase in the nation. Touring was focused on college and university campuses, but The Restoration Project has also visited prisons, drug rehab centers, inner city shelters and continues to visit communities throughout Latin America and the world.

International Work
The Restoration Project maintains an active tour schedule in general market venues but in her current season, Tracy has been focused on deepening relationships with a handful of communities in the US and South America, developing and sharing international resources (she speaks and sings in Spanish and Portuguese as well) and exploring alternative and sustainable models of touring and artistry (like HOUSE CONCERTS) that release people into their work, regardless of socio–economic situations or community size. Desiring deeply to help pioneers all over the world in bringing the presence of Jesus to their communities…and nations, Tracy is leading combined efforts to build helping networks in North, Central and South America.

The New Conspirators: Missional Book List

 

 

 

Sign up now to receive by email the next two issues of the Seed Sampler on Mosaic (or multicultural) church, and the Monastic Movement. The Seed Sampler is a free monthly e-zine of published by Mustard Seed Associates.

Tom’s Missional Book List

from the extended bibliography of Tom Sine’s upcoming book, The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time [working title], Intervarsity Press, January 2008.

1. Orlando E. Costas, The Church and Its Mission: A Shattering Critique From the Third World (Tyndale House, 1974).
2. Walter E. Pilgrim, Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (Augsburg, 1981).
3. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Eerdmans, 1989).
4. David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Orbis, 1991).
5. Darrell Guder, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Eerdmans, 1998).
6. Darrell Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Eerdmans, 2000).
7. James B. Browson, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Barry A. Harvey, Charles C. West, StormFront: The Good News of God (Eerdmans, 2003).
8. Reggie McNeal, Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church (Jossey-Bass, 2003).
9. Lois L. Barrett, et al, Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness (Eerdmans, 2004).
10. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission For the 21st Century Church (Hendrickson Publishers, 2004).
11. Stuart Murray, Church After Christendom (Paternoster Press, 2004).
12. Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture (Hendrickson, 2006).
13. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., The Politics of Jesus (Random House, 2006).
14. Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church (Brazos Press, 2006).
15. Patrick Keifert, We Are Here Now: A New Mission Era (Allelon Publishing, 2006).
16. Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World (Jossey-Bass, 2006).
17. Tim Conder, “Will the Real Church Please Stand Up?” Leadership Journal (Winter 2007).