Will you join us?

I’m looking forward to getting acquainted with you, and your Red Letter Friends, and to learning more about your ideas for Jesus-rooted change-making in the turbulent new decade of the 2020s.

Dwight J. Freisen and I are both very grateful for Shane Claiborne’s kind endorsement for our book, 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.

“Tom Sine & Dwight J Freisen invite us to reimagine the world and begin building the kind future that God wants for us and the world. Dig in and join the revolution.” ~Shane Claiborne

2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change is designed as a study book with questions at the end of each chapter to enable followers of Jesus to prepare for these rapidly changing times. Fortress Press has just reduced the price to $5 dollars per book.

I am making a special offer to Red Letter Christians and am offering to provide a Free Zoom visit for any Red Letter Group that does a study of 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.

Foresight in terms of creating new opportunities, new ways to follow Jesus in response to new challenges that their members of their family, friends, and neighbors are likely to encounter in the rapidly changing 2020s.

In 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change. Tom & Dwight invite us to join other followers of Jesus who are using this book in group studies to: anticipate and to address new opportunities and challenges we are likely to face in 2024 and the next decade of accelerating change. Here are the three steps you will find offered in 2020s Foresight:

Step 1: Anticipating
Learning how to anticipate new opportunities & challenges you, and those you care about, are likely to encounter in the future. Then we encourage you to do active research like urban planners so you can help find the best responses for you, your family, friends both at church and in your neighborhood, so they too have time to respond.

Step 2: Reflecting
Learning from urban planners how to actively research a broad range of innovative ways to respond to the new challenges & opportunities to expand your range of options for you, those in your family, but also for friends at church and in your neighborhood locally and globally.

Step 3: Innovating
Learning to select those new innovative responses that most clearly reflect the ways of Jesus…which is always central for Red Letter Christians.

As we race into the turbulent 2024 and beyond, we are waking up to a new reality of accelerating change. Shane Claiborne urges us to see 2024 as a time of opportunity to share the good news of Jesus in tangible ways like joining Christians who are planting orchards, beating guns into garden tools, building homes for the homeless, and reaching out to all of our neighbors in ways that reflect Jesus’ teachings. This is the unique ministry of Red Letter Christians and other affiliated ministries.

AGAIN, HERE IS MY SPECIAL FREE OFFER TO RED LETTER CHRISTIANS!
As mentioned above, I am making a unique offer to Red Letter Christians or to your churches. If you have a group that becomes involved in a study of 2020s Foresight, I will offer to join your group for a 2-hour Zoom visit after you have gotten into your study, at no charge to you or your group.

I am looking forward to learning about your creative ideas of ways to both be a difference and make a difference that reflects the ways of Jesus. I will also share some other creative ideas Christine and I have come across. Contact me and tell me about your book study group and your ideas.

We invite you, our Red Letter Christians friends, to join other Christians that are anticipating new challenges and opportunities we are likely to encounter in 2024 during this decade of accelerating change. We are particularly interested in the innovative ways you and your members are creating to live and to help others make a difference in response to new challenges facing Gen Next and your neighbors locally and globally. We are interested in innovative new ways you are finding, like many in Gen Next, to make a difference that reflects the ways of Jesus instead of the seduction of Instagram envy and other distractions of this transient world.

Just a bit about my wonderful wife Christine and myself. I’m Tom Sine, and you can read a bit more about me in my bio. I have dedicated my career to empowering followers of Jesus. I am particularly a fan of Gen Y & Z and now Alpha Gen. 

I find a higher percentage of Gen Next care deeply about environmental, racial, and economic justice. I have discovered also that many of them are eager to work with churches to make a difference in their neighborhoods and particularly some of the neediest parts of our struggling world like Haiti where I worked for 7 years. Shane and I go back to when we were both younger lads doing some engaging sessions with a new generation of Christians way back then. We need more Christians of all ages to connect to the new “Good News Generations”!

Christine and I have also had the delight of hosting Shane when he has come to Christian conferences in Seattle. Christine has a very active global website on prayer and spirituality: Godspacelight.com. Her most recent book is The Gift of Wonder. 

Christine was an Australian doctor in her former life, and she was also the first doctor to head up Mercy Ships for 7 years before we were married. These days we live in an ancient house we call “Mustard Seed House”. Our home has three separate 2-bedroom apartments that we share with 2 young couples. We share a meal with a faith reflection once a week and we also share the produce from our productive garden.

May God inspire your dreaming and innovating as we race into this rapidly changing new decade in ways that reflect the teachings of Jesus. 

I am looking forward to getting acquainted with you, your innovative ideas and your Red Letter Group and your response to 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change.  I am particularly looking forward to hearing about your creative responses to the new opportunities and challenges you are likely to encounter in 2024 and beyond.

Tom Sine 206-307-7998
Mustard Seed House
Seattle Washington

Despite that, Pew Research also has some very good news about Gen Next that provides a huge and very welcome opportunity for Red Letter Christians. A remarkable number of Gen Z and some of the younger members of Gen Y, the Boomer generation, are the first “digital generation”.

As a consequence, this good news generation seems to be much more concerned about issues of environmental, racial, and economic justice than older generations.

Isn’t this very good news for groups like Red Letter Christians?

The even better news is that a larger number of these two generations who want to use their lives to join those who are creating new ways to advance environmental, racial, and economic justice as we race into the turbulent 2040s.

I find most pastors are well aware of the alarming number of the American young who are no longer going to affiliate with churches. A growing number of churches will have very few members under 50.  However, I am surprised that few pastors and lay leaders are aware of this new “the good news generation.” As a consequence, I find few churches that are reaching out to this generation because they are not interested in joining their churches.

There are a few churches like a small movement based in Seattle called the Parish Collective. They host a conference here every April where the central focus is on neighborhood change making. What makes this focus unusual is that they share some very compelling stories of collaborating with young people from the Good News Generation.

These young people are not members of their church, but they are interested in joining others in making a difference in their neighborhood. In fact, many of them welcome the opportunity to do serious neighborhood change making.

My partner Christine and I have had the opportunity to host Shane Claiborne three or four times when he has come to Seattle for Parish Collective gatherings. The leaders of these Parish congregations welcome the connection to Red Letter Christians. It is always great to reconnect with Shane and recall the early days when we were both getting started. Shane and I did a unique session about social justice issues.

Every church I have worked with over a period of 40 years loves their young people, and there used to be many of them.  However, oftentimes they did not seem to be aware of how different the challenges of a new generation are, often much more daunting in terms of costs for college to costs for housing.

My wife Christine and I decided over 30 years ago to develop a more personal connection to Gen Next. If you have heard of Mercy Ships, Christine, who is a doctor educated in Australia, headed Mercy Ships for 17 years before we were married. Early in our marriage, many years ago, we decided we wanted to connect with Gen Next.

We fashioned an unusual way to make that connection. We purchased an ancient house here in Seattle over 30 years ago. It was built way back in 1910. It is a large house with three two-bedroom apartments on three floors that we call The Mustard Seed House.

For over 30 years, we have offered reduced rent, usually to young Christian couples, if they would join us for a meal together once a week where we reflect on our faith journeys. We also garden together once a month. Right now, we are getting ready to harvest and share 100 pounds of Asian pears and 400 pounds of apples. Most importantly, our young guests help us become more aware of the serious concerns and interests of their generation.

I mention this to encourage other couples in Red Letter Christians to consider sharing their empty rooms in their own houses. You will find young serious Christians launching their lives as members of the new Good News generation.

As my first article as part of the leaders’ network with Red Letter Christians and I wanted to begin with a brief introduction of Christine and me. We are looking forward to meeting other members, friends, and co-conspirators of Red Letter Christians. Christine has a very active website and blog on prayer and spirituality, GodSpaceLight.com. She is also an author and her most recent book is: The Gift of Wonder.

Over 50 years ago on that First Earth Day, while working at Maui Community College, faculty and students were shaken when Dr. James Dator from the University of Hawaii delivered an alarming message. He described that we were heading into a turbulent future with increasing environmental challenges. That message led me to quit my job and move to Seattle to pursue a doctorate in Intellectual History and a minor in forecasting.

My primary work is enabling churches and Christian organizations to:

1. Learn how to anticipate coming changes,
2. So they have lead time to aggressively research new innovative responses
3. And select those innovative responses that most fully reflect the teachings of Jesus.

My primary way of seeking to enable churches in this decade of accreting change is offering one- or two-day Futures Creativity Workshops. 

Recently, I did what I call a Futures Creativity Workshop with a Presbyterian Church in Enumclaw, Washington. They both anticipated some new challenges they were likely to be facing in the next three to five years and created some new responses. This leadership team knew they were an aging congregation, but they had not noticed they no longer had any young families with kids. They came up with two possible solutions.

First, they came up with a very creative idea to connect with young families. They have an underutilized building. They also have the resources to offer an arts class for elementary age children in their community at no cost to their families. It would save parents money and develop relationships with young families again. They came up with a good number of additional creative ideas. This gives you an illustration of one of the kinds of ideas that are generated with the Futures Creativity Workshops that I offer to serve churches, Christian organizations, and groups of college grads who are launching their lives. If you are interested in learning more, you can contact me: Tom Sine at 206-307-7998.

My current book, that I wrote with Dwight Friesen, is 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change. It is designed as a study book for churches and Christian organizations.

This book begins by asking: “Have you been blindsided by change? Surprised by the unexpected? Are you among the growing number of those feeling “that left behind feeling?”…We are all indeed racing into the 2020s—a new decade of accelerating change…ready or not! This will be a new decade of opportunity for a new generation of Red Letter Christian leaders!”

Shane wrote a very welcome endorsement. This book “invites us to reimagine the world and to begin building the kind of future that God wants for us and for the world. Dig in…and join the Revolution.” (Shane Claiborne)

2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change is designed to be a study book with questions at the end of every chapter. For Red Letter Christian friends who plan to use it as a group study book, I am making a special offer. I will offer to do a 2-hour Zoom visit with your study group at no cost but only ask that you contact me at least two weeks ahead to set that up.

I would welcome learning more about some of the major new challenges facing those working with Red Letter Christians as we race into the turbulent 2040s and some of the innovative ways you are creating to address those challenges.

Please feel free to contact both me and Christine.
Tom Sine 206-307-7998 twsine@gmail.com
Christine is at seasickdoctor@gmail.com