People keep talking about The New Conspirators book

Tom Sine has provided us with a field manual for being the hands and feet of Jesus in our specific communities and situations today.  With extensive sources and examples, Sine explains the difficulties of living in a post-9/11 world, a culture of “cool,” and a society of debt - consumer and student, alike. He outlines in detail the challenges which face people of high, middle, and low income living in a global economy. While The New Conspirators addresses situations across the globe, Sine’s expertise in explaining the Western world is just as strong as Philip Jenkins’ diagram of the Global South in his book The Next Christendom.  Because its examples and references are time-sensitive, it’s important to read Sine’s book now, rather than “getting around to it.”

This book’s strength is the way it connects you to what God is doing at this very minute. But when you’re done with The New Conspirators, go ahead and keep it on your bookshelf. Pick it up every now and then in future years, and be ready to find out that Sine told you so.

-Paul Glavic  http://paulglavic.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/sine-sends-us-in-the-right-direction/ 

Sine provides an excellent overview of the emergent, missional, monastic and mosaic movements. Mr. Sine helps the reader to understand the particulars of each stream and how they impact the church in the west.

He is able to simplify, but not oversimplify how the global context we now and will live in impacts the role of the church. I thought his description and understanding of this post 9/11 world profound and I believe this is one of the few Christian books which helps disinterested, “over family-focused” evangelicals to clearly see the implications that our current global context will have on the rich, middle and low income groups across the globe.

-Rukshan Fernando,  Professor of Social Work, Taylor University, India http://bricksandmortar.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/the-new-conspirators/  

It’s not often that I finish a book and write in the back of it: “Every high school and college student should read this - don’t underestimate what can happen!” This was the case as I completed Tom Sine’s latest book, The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time.

In case you are not familiar with Tom, he is a speaker, author, theologian, and futurist who helps us look at the relationships between the shifting broader culture and the changing church. He has a prophetic gift and uses it to suggest best ways to respond to the future, identifying creative and cutting edge expressions of Christian faithfulness. This summer I reread some material that he wrote over 20 years ago and I was amazed by how “spot on” he was in his predictions, and how many things that he anticipated had come true.

This is a book that should be read by students and their teachers. With helpful and thought-provoking starter questions at the end of each chapter, this would also be a great book for adult study groups to read and discuss.

-Dan Beerens, http://nurturingfaith.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/mustard-seeds-of-hope/  

The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard See at a Time, by Tom Sine and published by InterVarsity Press is a great read. It is an important read for those in the church and perhaps outside the church trying to get a grasp on not only the world we live in today, but the one which is being created now and into the future! Tom does an excellent job bringing together the four major streams of new activity in the church. Streams which will chart the course ahead for faithfulness to Jesus Christ. These four streams are: Monastic, Mosaic, Missional Church, and Emerging Church. The most defining reality found in each of these movements, Sine notes, is there move away from an inward or an attractional "come-to-us" approach. Instead it is noted that all these streams have recovered a robust Gospel understanding that recognizes the cosmic proportions of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. This theological recovery/shift has seen droves of younger Christians shift from a individualistic boomer focus of personal achievement and advancement to discerning the missional activity of God in the world and then joining God in that activity to bring about healing and wholeness in the world, God's world. Because of its thorough and wide ranging analysis, of the many wonderful books written on this subject, this is the one-stop book I recommend for church study groups and leaders.

-Sam Andress http://samandress.blogspot.com/2008/08/mini-reviews.html  

Tom Sine is the emerging church's answer to Thomas Friedman, realistic yet hopeful for the future of the world and God's people.

The New Conspirators unhesitatingly portrays how globalization threatens the integrity of ancient cultures, the economic well-being of the most vulnerable, the ecological balance of the world, and the values of Biblical faith. Yet, in the midst of challenging times, Sine brings a word of encouragement: in Christ, God's Kingdom has already come. Christians have reason to rejoice, as they show others what it means to be part of "the new world that is already here."

The second and fourth sections of the book are excellent, and are what make Sine's book an effective response to Friedman's works, such as The World is Flat. In these, Sine deftly characterizes our consumer culture, contrasts its values with those of the early church, and shows how changing global realities threaten to make our lifestyle unsustainable.

Between these two sections, Sine takes a step back to imagine an alternative culture, one guided more by the desires of God than the desires catered to by the "global mall." He stresses the concreteness of the new creation - that it will be a real place, in which not only our own personal pain is healed but in which the oppressed receive justice.

Christians hope for, and are promised, a Kingdom of universal peace and justice. The Christian calling is to make this Kingdom visible now, even if only with faith as small as a mustard seed. In the final section of The New Conspirators, Sine describes the efforts of many who are living out this call.

If the last section, "Taking our Imaginations Seriously," were all the book had to offer, it would still be worth reading. As it is, Sine's book is both a reality check on the challenges of the 21st century and a refreshing glimpse of how God has planned to deal with those challenges. It is an invaluable resource for developing Kingdom imagination.

-Evan Donovan http://www.urbanministry.org/new-conspirators-review  

The New Conspirators is an invitation. There are no blue prints or models to follow, but stories that invite you to creative imagination and to bold experimentation.  Tom’s research and analysis is excellent.  In the midst of our present reality Tom calls us back to the future, to the hope of the homecoming of God’s Kingdom. 

-Jon Hallewell   http://lynhallewell.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/review-the-new-conspirators-tom-sine/