Tom Sine...

It was an interesting start to the evening; stood outside a very well locked up inner city church wondering if we were in the right place to hear Tom Sine. Five of us sensibly getting there early just in case we didn't get in. We didn't have much to worry about! Eventually some life and Tom and his hosts arrive and we are let in together with a young dread locked boy seemingly looking for community and warmth. Gradually a small crowd joins us and we introduced to parts of his new book The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time.

His thing is definitely that of being a friendly voice to the emerging church, championing a new generation of innovators, risk takers and entrepreneurs, those he perceives God is doing something new through. He used Strictly Ballroom to make the point that this new generation are "fed up of dancing other people's steps" and with this motivation these new conspirators engage with the emerging crisis facing church through innovative missional expressions of church in what he calls four streams.
  • emerging
  • missional
  • mosaic {multi-cultural}
  • monastic
Tom Sine is what he would call a futurist - someone who looks into what future trends will mean for the church and he painted a disturbing picture of current and future economic and the consequent demands and opportunities for the church.

I think I would have liked to have heard more about life after the emerging church has emerged! With each generation deconstructing the generation before what will a deconstructed em. ch look like? I wanted to get a insight to how church will look like with deeper definitions of gospel and evangelism. I wanted to know what had happened to the young dread locked boy who seemingly had slipped out while I was fascinated with the fact that the slides were being remotely controlled by someone's mobile phone via blue tooth!!


Sine, T. (2008). The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time

Comments

Johnny said…
Tom was on top form at MOOT as well, Gordon.

J
4:38 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit of sally bashing....

Came across a good bit of Sally bashing over at salvationsoldiers I have to say we try and make sure that everything we raise goes into projects that build local community in Poplar but hopefully if you read this blog you get that sense anyway.
Read more

Lost Voices of Mission...Fred Brown

Image
Along the world famous Oxford street in London's Westend; nestled in among the classy frontage of designer shops there is almost an unnoticeable, unimpressive wooden door. It is more or less alongside The Regent Hall's main entrance onto the busyness of Oxford Street. People pass the wooden door oblivious to the equally unimpressive wooden steps that go up three storey's to what was Regent Hall's youth club. When I was 10 I played on these bare wooden steps totally unaware of the significance behind and upon which I played. Many years later I discovered a university youth work course - as an induction to Youth Work - stopped outside this insignificant wooden door to point out that Youth Work as we know it in the UK started behind this door. ...whether that be the surbanite flower people that flooded the Westend to express their free love; or the hard core drug community this unimpressive wooden door became the 'portal' that blurred encounter between church an...
Read more

Types of Christian Spirituality...

Image
It is easy to think and to limit ourselves to a single approach to Christian spirituality. A 'if it works for me it should work for you approach' tends to narrow our appreciation of other ways which actually impoverishes our experience of spirituality. Urban T. Holmes has developed a means of exploring spirituality and helps develop an appreciation through discovering links between spirituality, temperament and predisposition. The diagram illustrates his ideas together with potential inherent dangers. The vertical continuum speaks and helps us understand our relational orientation to God. This ranges from engaging with God through understanding and theological process to a more emotive response. Horizontally speaks of a persons preferred means of pursuing the spiritual life. Kataphtic speaks of affirmation and the need of something tangible in an individuals spirituality- this may take the form of worship, art, even imagination with the use of metaphors, symbols and images play...
Read more