Posted 113 days ago

The Voice of MSA: The Seed Sampler

by Judy Naegeli, MSA team

In one of my vain attempts to clear some space in the office computer’s hard drive, I recently discovered a document from 2003 entitled “Proposal for MSA News.” Aimed at being a monthly announcement-type email, this newsletter was supposed to include “Cool Stuff” (resources from the creative edge and relevant examples), “Reports from the field” (stories from friends in the thick of it all), and “What’s up in the forum?” (publicizing activity on the online discussion board). I thought to myself fondly, “Ah, the humble, distinguished beginnings of our beloved Seed Sampler.” I eventually found the first edition of the MSA News. Just a plain, simply formatted Word document with the following introductory paragraph:

Welcome to the new MSA News. Mustard Seed Associates, Tom and Christine, our board members, and international friends are always finding God’s mustard seed at work around the world. One of the goals of MSA is to share these mustard seed findings… in order to encourage the mustard seeds and to inspire those of you with your own mustard seed to plant. We do hope that you find these stories encouraging and inspiring.

Little blurbs of one or two paragraphs followed, most likely written by MSA staffers, all totaling two-and-a-half pages.

In five years, our monthly MSA publication has expanded. There are still many similarities, of course—our goal is still to share “mustard seed findings,” but it has become much more. We’ve graduated to email marketing online software. At some point, the language was streamlined to match with the seed imagery of the organization—Seed Story, Seed Share, Seed Smile, etc. Then, we started asking for contributions from people outside the team and all over the world—like Dewi Hughes, Julie Clawson and Ian Mobsby—for a more well-rounded and international flavor. And recently, we started calling it an e-zine instead of a newsletter. To us, “newsletter” signifies an update on the internal happenings at MSA, which we now only do once a year (hence this issue). “E-zine” carries an outward connotation, a synthesis of information from an expansive array of external sources, if you will. And that is what we hope our little publication is and will continue to become. It’s come a long, long way from the plain MSA News to the Seed Sampler that we all know and love today. But I might be a little biased.

I’m the person on the MSA team that’s in charge of the Seed Sampler. (My official title is Seed Sampler coordinator, but I only pull that one out for special occasions.) I recruit writers, plan topics, maintain the contact lists, edit all the articles and occasionally write, like now. It’s the most fun job I have ever had.

Every month we choose a new topic to highlight in the Seed Sampler, topics that interest us and our readers and topics we wish to make people aware of. Most importantly, we try to choose topics that are consistent with our values at MSA. For example, we value creative expressions of church, so we devoted a series of four Seed Samplers (and a conference) to creative streams of renewal in the church—Emerging, Missional, Mosaic and Monastic. We also value, and seek to practice, solidarity with the marginalized, so we have devoted Seed Samplers to human trafficking, women’s issues in the two-thirds world, and at-risk children. All of our topics relate somehow to the things we value and, we hope, to the coming kingdom of God.

Here is a list of our upcoming topics. They are subject to change, but you get a general idea:
September —The Revolution Starts At Home (check out the new blog!)
October —Recession Preparedness
November —Advent 2008
December —Community/Co-housing
January —The Alternative Calendar
February —Architecture/Design (tentative)

If you have any ideas for topics or articles, please don’t hesitate to email me (Judy) at mustardseedassociates@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Speaking of contributing ideas, sometime last year, we started the Writers Bureau, a voluntary group of people interested in contributing to the Seed Sampler, either by writing or offering ideas, suggestions and comments. Currently, there are 242 people signed up for it, but their fearless leader (cough!…me) has been lax about keeping in touch. My hope for the Bureau is that people will regularly comment on recent issues, offer ideas for contributors in future issues, bring new resources to our attention, or submit articles or photos on topics they are passionate about. My goal is to check in with all the Bureau people at least every two months with an update on my end—possible future topics, needs for the next couple issues and encouragement. If you would like to be a part of the Writers Bureau, just email. If you are already a part of the Writers Bureau and haven’t heard from me yet, I’ll be in touch soon.

The Seed Sampler is like the voice of MSA. It carries the passions, values, reflections and ideas of the people in and around the community. I hope you will continue to enjoy our e-zine for many moons to come, and that through it, you will be encouraged and inspired.

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