Upcoming Events from the Transform Network

Three exciting events — and important deadlines — to update you on.  Tom and I will both be at the Wild Goose festival and the Inhabit Conference.

1) Tonight at midnight is the deadline to get reduced rate tickets to the inaugural Wild Goose Festival gathering — June 23-26 at Shakori Hills outside of Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina! This event has been in the works for years, and a lot of TransFORM Network folks are planning to be there. There will be startling speakers, fantastic music, and great activities for people of all ages. The over-arching themes of Wild Goose are Art, Justice, and Spirituality, and this gathering will have all three of these things presented in a wonderful way. Please don’t miss it!

2) This Sunday (March 27) is the deadline to get the reduced individual or group rate registration for Inhabit Conference — April 29-30 at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, Washington. Inhabit is not just any conference, it’s the West Coast gathering of the TransFORM and Parish Collective tribes — and it’s going to be phenomenal! If you’re looking for help in forming a new missional community and new friends to join you on the journey, then please do not miss Inhabit Conference — especially if you live on the West Coast.

3) East Coast and especially Northeast folks, don’t forget to RSVP for the TransFORM Northeast Regional Mini-Gathering, taking place the same weekend as Inhabit Conference, featuring great conversations among missional practitioners. This gathering is free, but you do need to RSVP to let the organizers know you are coming.

Hope to see you at one of these gatherings!

Shalom,
Steve Knight
TransFORM Network Community Architect

 

Advertisement

Be a Difference; Make A Difference – Podcast by Tom Sine

Here is the latest podcast that Tom has done talking about ways to make a difference and be a difference.  He was interviewed by Jonathan Blundell last week on Something Beautiful

The New Conspirators – Podcast with Tom Sine

I have been meaning to put this link up for some time.  As many of you know my husband Tom Sine wrote a book last year entitled The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed At A Time. I may be prejudiced but I don’t think there is another book around that takes a more comprehensive look at the different streams of renewal in the church and provides so many creative examples of how we can be a part of God’s mustard seed conspiracy that is slowly transforming our world.

Here is a link to a recent podcast Tom did with Steve Brown

Sine Meanderings – The Netherlands in Review

I have finally downloaded all my photos and had time to catch my breath from our trip, though Tom is still on the move and I just drove him to the airport for a trip to Pittsburgh and a Youth Specialties event.

It was great to be able to take this trip together.  Tom’s three week trip to Britain was the longest we have been separated since we were married and neither of us like travelling overseas on our own.

Enjoying our trip

I think that more than anything on our trip to the Netherlands I enjoyed the people we met and the new friendships we made.  We asked to stay with people rather than in hotels and this provided a wonderful foundation for getting to know some of the organizers of the various events.  The first few days were spent in Utrecht with Frank and Marika Mulder.  Frank heads up Time To Turn which is a part of an international network of organizations that campaign for justice.  Frank was also one of the translators for The New Conspirators into Dutch.

Frank Marika and their son

One evening we crammed 20 people into their small apartment to discuss what it means to live in community.  11 of them are about to move into a series of 5 small apartments (at least by American or Australian standards) in Utrecht in order to be involved in intentional community together.  Frank and his able assistant Wanda kept us busy during our 2 weeks away speaking to emerging church groups, the Evangelical Alliance and several church congregations as well as the Time to Turn Festival in delft this last weekend.  The emerging church is really only just beginning to grow in the Netherlands but there are some very creative new church plants that I think we will hear a great deal about in the near future.

Time To Turn - enjoying a meal together

On Saturday afternoon participants engaged in a protest outside the Nokia headquarters, highlighting the fact that many of the cell phone components are made by slave labour in the Congo. Everwhere we spoke we found that people were craving a deeper understanding of the kingdom of God and how to live out our Christian values in today’s worlds.  Young people in all the groups we met with were looking for an authentic whole life faith that could impact every aspect of their lives.

Frank ready to protest

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the opportunity to get together with a good friend from Australia who just happened to be in Europe while we were there.  Louise and I went to medical school together and have remained friends ever since.  It was wonderful to wander through the old city of Delft together on a glorious afternoon.

With Louise in Delft

I was really challenged by the young people we met who take their faith seriously and as a consequence have committed not just to social activism but also to simplicity and community.  Most of them don’t own cars – of course in a bicycle culture like Holland this is a little easier than it would be in most parts of the world.  But they have also taken some very deliberate steps to live in the poorer parts of their cities and work to enable those at the margins to have a better life.  May God continue to bless their efforts for his kingdom.

Heading to Holland

Tomorrow Tom & I leave early for a flight to Amsterdam and a 2 week tour of the Netherlands.  We are mainly working with an organization called Time To Turn

However we have several other speaking engagements and are particularly looking forward to the opportunity to catch up with friends we have not seen for many years.  To me catching up with friends like this is a foretaste of heaven.  It reminds me of a line from one of the Narnia books “There is nothing like a joke that has been forgotten for 400 years. ”  Now it may not be 400 years since we saw most of our Dutch friends but it is still wonderful to reminisce and share fellowship together.  Much to my delight an Australian friend that I went to medical school with will be in Europe too and she will come and spend a day with us in Delft.

We would appreciate your prayers as we travel

Here is our complete itinerary. If you are interested in attending one of these events please contact Wanda Schuurman Time to Turn, Faustdreef 183, 3561 LG Utrecht
tel: 030-2621969: wanda@timetoturn.nl

The New Conspirators Tour

with Tom and Christine Sine

	morning	afternoon	evening
Wed 15 Oct	07.00 arrival	/ free time /	/ free time /
Thu 16 Oct	10.00Interview with Maarten Vermeulen for Nederlands Dagblad)	15.00Interview with Frank Mulder for magazine CV Koers	/ free time /
Fri  17 Oct		15.00-20.00 Symposium Evangelical Alliance + book launch	(continued)
Sat  18 Oct		14.00-17.00Emerging Network Utrecht Utrecht
Sun 19 Oct	11.30 and 14.00Dutch Reformed Church Houten 2 services	(continued)	Meeting in Utrecht Overvecht
Mon 20 Oct	Gerard Kelly lunch or coffee		20.00Workshop Imagine That Amsterdam
Tue 21 Oct			Rik Zutphen Gouda
Wed 22 Oct	10.00Emerging Church Foremen Utrecht		20.00 Meeting with protestant Christians in Best
Thu 23 Oct	10.00-16.00 Youth for Christ, training for youth workers	(continued)	19.30-22.00 Dutch Reformed Church Utrecht
Fri 24 Oct	Jeff Fountain		19.00Time to Turn festival, Delft
Sat 25 Oct	Time to Turn festival workshop	Time to Turn festivalfree time	Time to Turn festivalservice
Sun 26 Oct	10.00Christ Church Amsterdam service	(continued)	Leadership meeting Christ Church Amsterdam (optional)
Mon 27 Oct	09.55 departure

Tom Sine Travelling in Turbulent Times

I just talked to Tom who is now in Manchester England on his book tour for The New Conspirators.  Amazingly he has not gotten lost once and is having a great time reconnecting to old friends and making new ones.  Here is a podcast from Moot in Oxford where he spoke over the weekend

Still Reading

These last couple of weeks have been a feast of reading for me. I have gone through two books by Tom Davis – Fields of the Fatherless and Red Letters. Great books with lots of stories about how to share the joy of compassionate living. In Fields of The Fatherless I was particularly impacted by the chapter on “What Does God Look LIke?” – My favourite quote is

“I think for the first time I saw the face of God – I saw it in the elderly woman who was lying on the ground in need of someone who would show her compassion.”

I been thinking a lot lately about the faces of a God who entered into the pain and suffering of our world in such a personal and intimate way. We are so used to looking for God in the prosperous and happy that we forget God is also reflected in the abandoned and despised – very profound and moving experience that will change our lives and hopefully force us to do more than just reflect.

In Red Letter I particularly enjoyed the chapter How to Bleed which gives practical suggestions on how to get involved on how to be Christ’s hands and feet in our world. I would highly recommend both these books to all who are interested in being God’s compassionate response to the needs of the world

I must confess however that my favourite book of the week was Isabel Allende’s The City of the Beast, a novel set in the Amazon basin that looks at issues of exploitation of Indians who have lived in the area unchanged for thousands of years. It is marketed as a book for young adults partly I think because it is also a coming of age book about two young teenagers on an expedition to find the Beast. However it is also a fascinating look at the so called “primitive” culture of the Amazonian Indians.

I also feel I should mention that my husband’s book The New Conspirators, is getting quite a bit of attention on the blogosphere. You can check it out on the official New Conspirators website

Byron Borger from Hearts and Minds bookstore in Pennsylvania has done a particularly in depth review. And the bookstore is even offering a special price for those who have not yet bought a copy.

Conspiring together

Here is the second of the morning prayers that Mark Pierson did for our conference The New Conspirators.  The emphasis is on multiculturalism and the call to part of a God’s beloved community.  It seemed an appropriate reflection for this season.

Morning Prayers for Lent: Conspiring in the Streets

Well we have finally said goodbye to the last of our international guests. Mark Pierson left this afternoon for New Zealand. His morning prayers were one of the highlights of the conference for me. Here are the powerpoint slides from Friday with the theme Conspiring in the Streets.

The series of photos for meditation are taken on the streets of Melbourne Australia where Mark was working. If you would also like to check out Foy Vance’s song on slide 42 you can listen to it on Youtube

Photos from New Conspirators

Well the conference is over & we all had a great time. I am still feeling a little too overloaded to write much but thought that you might like to check out some of the photos.  Or you could check out the reports on Eliacin’s blog

We also used this as an occasion to launch Tom’s new book

The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed At a Time. Check it out