Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-027 (Book Review)

MUSTARD SEED VERSUS McWORLD: Reinventing Life and Faith for the Future

by Tom Sine.

(Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI. 1999), 249. ISBN 0-8010-9088-1

Reviewed by David W. Virtue

FOR more than 30 years Tom Sine has kept alive the biblical truth that the Kingdom of God, contained in a mustard seed, is the compelling image and promise of God at work in the world. It defies upward mobility, the good life, the American Dream and now, in his latest book, he prophetically challenges the phenomenon of globalization and its influence both on society and the Church of Jesus Christ.

“Economic globalization involves arguably the most fundamental redesign of the planet’s political and economic arrangements since at least the industrial revolution. We are hardwiring our planet electronically into a single global system of satellites, fax machines, and internet communications. Borders are melting. Distance is dying. One and one-half trillion dollars flashes around the planet every day as we witness the rapid creation of a one- world economic order,” writes Sine.

Sine terms the process of globalization McWorld. “The architects of McWorld are not simply trying to increase global free trade and free enterprise; they are, I believe, working to redefine what is important and what is of value in people’s lives all over the planet to sell their wares.”

He writes; “In every era the church of Jesus Christ has found itself in a deadly contest with the principalities and powers of this world. Increasingly we find ourselves contending not only with escalating global change but also with a system of values that is often fundamentally counter to the values of the gospel of Christ.”

“As we hurtle into the next millennium…a number of tried-and-true methods of being the church won’t carry us very far into the future. We need to reinvent how we live our lives and act out our faith…we need to learn to think outside of the box.”

Sine is critical of the growing disparities between rich and poor and says the church is losing out big-time to the seductions of modernity and the allures of the American dream. He cites Tony Campolo who says “that capitalism’s corrosive materialism will destroy us every bit as much as the materialism of Leninist Communism.”

Sine is equally troubled that modern culture is dictating the terms of our lives and the church gets the leftovers. He also thinks the Western Churches and major denominations are in big trouble. “We are witnessing the rapid emergence of a “post-denominational church,” he says. “All the old-line denominations are graying and declining and slowly going out of business. The charismatic movement has largely plateaued in all Western countries. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches are often showing growth, but the overall pattern is still one of decline, as it is in England, and the missing generation is consistently those under age thirty- five.”

When it comes to charitable giving Sine is no less sanguine. The donor pool is shrinking and discretionary money is going to the McWorld macromall. “For all the talk about the lordship of Jesus, my generation sold the young the American dream with a little Jesus overlay. For all the talk about lordship, the real message to the Christian young is the message that drives McWorld. Agenda one is getting ahead in your job, getting ahead in the suburbs, getting your upscale lifestyle started; then, with whatever you have left, follow Jesus. If the new generation puts the American dream first, they will have little time or money to invest in the mission of the mustard seed.”

Sine says that North American Christians have often unwittingly allowed modernity, western dualism, and the American dream to shape our lives and trivialize our faith. “I am convinced that at the core of our lives is a misplaced allegiance.”

We have, he concludes, discipleship dead wrong. “We have settled for a dualistic discipleship and have exported this flawed model all over the planet.”

Sine says that what we need is a biblical call to whole-life discipleship, a reawakened imagination of the Creator’s vision for coming home that is different from the vision promised us by McWorld.

Sine argues that we are not losing the Christian young to the cults and New Age; we’re losing them to the new religious shrines of devotion in McWorld, the shopping malls.

Sine wants Christians to rethink their priorities, time and values. “We need a transformation of our spiritual lives, a the transformation of our moral values, and finally, the transformation of our cultural values.”

Sine proposes that Christians, especially the young, rethink what their priorities are. “Life decision number one is to determine how God wants to use my life to advance God’s purposes.”" We need to reorder our lives, he says. “We need to rediscover how God is calling us to put God’s mission purposes first.

Sine argues that Christians need to have a regular prayer retreat and draw up a personal or family mission statement. Raise kids to think about others, he says. Read stories to neglected seniors in nursing homes. Deepen spirituality and create more intimacy with God. Celebrate more as groups together. Have accountability in small groups that pray and study the bible together. Look for and create new models, reinvent what it means to be the church. Be less programmatic and more relational in church life. The church is a counter-culture community. The first call of the gospel is to be incarnational, that is living out the gospel in our lives.

Sine points to models of living together; a cohousing project in Denmark that has creative use of property and land that house more people for less money than single unit dwellings. “The average American aged 55 will need to put away $1.5 million to retire comfortably in the U.S… why couldn’t Christians create new living arrangements that reflect the values of the Kingdom more than the values of modern culture?

Sine points to a ‘mustard seed’ idea in Christchurch, New Zealand where a Baptist church sponsored 35 ministries to single-parent moms, unemployed young people ands those on welfare. A high percentage of its 800 members are involved in these ministries. A Kingdom Trust operates like a credit union making small business loans to those on the margins of society and offers free business consultation. Over the years it has successfully enabled hundreds of people to become self-supporting again.

Sine’s book is chock-full of brilliant suggestions for whole-life mission and deeper discipleship walking with God. The book is not a social justice manifesto of burned out liberal notions of Kingdom of Heaven on earth possibilities. He is far too realistic for that.

His eight-fold opportunities for Christian leaders say it all.

1.Make a major effort to reach, church and mentor a new generation to whole-life, biblical discipleship in which they place the purposes of the mustard seed before the aspirations of McWorld.

2.Challenge all churches to move God’s mission to the center of congregational life, setting goals how time and money should invest in this mission each year (at home and abroad) with regular audits.

3.Write down implicit assumptions about why and what they do. Study Scripture, and write down biblically based assumptions to test and create new possibilities in Christian missions.

4.Create new ministries that work for shalom transformation not just of individuals but whole communities to reflect God’s purposes.

5.Reinvent how we steward resources in our Christian organizations, to do more with less.

6.Pay attention to the leadership that is being provided by a new generation and find ways to collaborate with these new leaders.

7.Create new forms of partnership to maximize impact while reducing costs.

8.Create new celebrations of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom as we work with those at the margins to advance the shalom purpose of God.

Sine has written a first class “how to” and “why to” book for Christian leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs, above all, for those concerned with advancing God’s kingdom from the bottom up and who want to participate in the conspiracy of the mustard seed. A must buy book for new millennial Christians who don’t want to sit around waiting for others to do it.

(Tom Sine is an author, teacher, historian and international consultant in futures research for both Christian and secular organizations. He holds a Ph.D. in American history and his wife Christine, is a medical doctor who served for many years as a medical missionary. They are evangelical Episcopalians living and worshipping in Seattle.)

David Virtue <>

(This review appeared in Virtuosity Digest, 21 Jan 2000)

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