Posted 233 days ago

From a Small Beginning

by Tom Sine

In my first book, Mustard Seed Conspiracy (1981), I invited readers to discover what God might do with their ordinary lives to make a little difference in the world. “What shall we say that the kingdom of God is like?” Jesus asked. “It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when it was planted, it becomes it grows and becomes the largest of all the garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade” (Mark 4:30-32 NIV). I argued that God is conspiring through our ordinary lives to quietly change our world.

The book got off to a slow start. But much to my surprise, not only did the book start selling, but a surprising number of people in different countries actually started taking the risk of discovering what God could do with their lives to impact the lives of others.

In fact, I received over 300 letters from all over the world. Most of those who wrote reported that they had created an array of ways to reach out to poor in their communities with small mustard seed groups on college campuses and to serve those at the margins by building houses with Habitat for Humanity. These are only a couple of examples. Frankly, I was taken aback by the number of people who took risks initiating new ways to make a difference.

I still have letter from Ray Bakke stating that his brother Dennis and his wife Eileen responded by starting a small family foundation while he was still a graduate student at Harvard. Since that small beginning, the Mustard Seed Foundation has given nearly $50 million to help start small ministries all over the world.

During the eighties, as the letters kept coming, I just thanked God for each small seed, but it never occurred to me to try and join what God was doing through these many small seeds. Finally, in 1989 someone suggested that we try and fashion an informal network of those who are joining God’s conspiracy of the insignificant and Mustard Seed Associates was launched.

Our mission statement is: “Believing that God is changing the world through mustard seeds—the seemingly insignificant— MSA seeks to unleash the creative potential of ordinary people to make a difference in their communities and a world of urgent need.” This broadly captures what we are attempting to accomplish.

We have three goals to put wheels under our statement of mission:

1. to raise awareness;
2. to connect those on the creative edge; and
3. to enable people to imagine and create new ways to be a difference and make a difference.

We seek to raise awareness in four areas that we call our pillars:

• To make people aware of how both the global society and the church are changing and of new and creative ways we can respond to new challenges before they fully arrive.
• To offer people a much more robust critique of the ways in which modern culture, as magnified though the global mall, are influencing our lives, values and even our religious institutions in order that we can reduce their influences.
• To present a much more compelling vision of God’s loving purposes for a people and a world and imaginative new ways we can be a part of that vision.
• To enable both individuals and communities of faith to give birth to new ways to advance God’s purposes in response to the challenges today and tomorrow.

We seek to connect those on the creative edge through our website, our monthly e-zine, our conferences, conversations, books and speaking.

We seek to enable people to imagine and create new ways to be a difference and make a difference by:

Offering creativity workshops called “*Imagine That!: Creating New Possibilities For Our Lives, Communities and Mission.*”
Creating a site on our web page called Imagine That where we invite people all over the world will be invited to imagine and create new ways God might use their mustard seeds to address some of the new challenges of our needy world.
Sponsoring a conference every two years where participants are invited to imagine and create new possibilities for their lives and communities of faith.

Our small association got off to a struggling start in the early ‘90s. Under Christine’s leadership in the last couple years, our small plant is finally flourishing as we try to connect with those on the creative edge. Our small team is comprised of Judy Naegeli, Eliacín Rosario-Cruz and Ricci Kilmer, Christine and I, plus some great student interns and volunteers from Seattle Pacific University and Whitworth College. In addition, for the last year Melissa Cairns and Hannah O’Brien have done an incredible job coordinating the Seed Sampler long-distance from Boulder, Colorado. That job has now passed on to Judy Naegeli.

We have a very able board of directors and a network of friends in different countries that offer us advice and council, including Mike Morris, who works with the Evangelical Alliance in the UK; Mark Pierson, who is a consultant in the curation of worship in New Zealand; Gary and Evelyn Heard, who pastor an experimental church in Melbourne, Australia; and Tom Balke, who lives in British Columbia and works for an international missions organization

God has given us the opportunity to work with followers of Jesus in many different countries. We have learned much from leaders in new expressions and traditional churches. We try to encourage followers of Jesus to put God’s kingdom purposes more at the center to their lives and churches. In fact, our book Living on Purpose: Finding Gods Best for Your Life is designed to enable the readers to discover God’s kingdom call on their lives. We encourage them, in small groups, to reinvent how they use their time and resources in order to actually implement their creative mustard seed ministry.

Christine’s newest book Godspace is being used by a number of churches to help participants escape “hurry sickness” and create a liturgy of life that that changes the focus and the pace of daily life.

We particularly attempt to support what God is doing through the experimental edge in the emerging, missional, mosaic (multi-cultural church plants seeking to reach a younger generation) and the monastic movement. While the other three streams are focused in planting churches that are more outwardly focused in mission, most of those in the monastic stream have no interest in church planting. Those, like Shane Claiborne at The Simple Way community in Philadelphia, are moving into the cities, living in community, developing serious prayer practices and working with the poor while often living at the same economic level.

We are eager to share with others the creative edge of God’s work all over the world. To do that, we need to hear from you! Could your write us and tell us about creative ways you are making a difference in your life or community of faith?

Join us and followers of Jesus all over the world in creating the future, one mustard seed at a time.

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