Christmas greetings from Tom and Christine and Goldie in the midst of yet another unsettling Advent season. We are relishing the opportunity to host small groups of friends in our home but once again are forgoing our usual Advent Open House. I (Christine) am still making mountains of shortbread, chocolate ginger bikes (that good Australian word for cookies) pecan slices and lemon bars. We can’t eat all of these on our own, so they will mainly go into packages to relatives and friends. My cooking frenzy this year was spurred on by the publication of our new Godspacelight Community Cookbook which includes recipes from eight different countries and twenty five Godspacelight reading community. A portion of the profits will go to World Concern and Bread for the World, two organizations that work with the poor and disadvantaged in our world. Our good friend and chef Graham Kerr, was kind enough to do the foreword for this international collection of recipes. You might like to check out the fun book launch we did with him on YouTube.
I (Tom) am very proud of Christine. After we resigned from Mustard Seed Associates she was wise enough to create a new innovative venture in prayer and spirituality called Godspacelight.com. I have been surprised and delighted how rapidly it has grown with many of you continuing to visit it regularly . I am particularly impressed that this site has become a global site on prayer and spirituality even though we live in the US. I am not only impressed by the large number of international viewers, but also by the growing number contributors. Christine reports that Godspacelight currently receives over 1500 hits a day.
I (Christine) continued my partnership with my friend Lilly Lewin throughout 2022. We hosted a couple of zoom websites and fortnightly Facebook live sessions which have now expanded to incorporate interviews with fascinating people like Mark and Lisa Scandrette who spent their summer on pilgrimage in Europe. Next year it will become a podcast on creative approaches to spirituality. I also published a new book Digging Deeper:The Art of Contemplative Gardening. It was great to have these online outlets as my year was plagued by health issues that meant I was able to do very little gardening. Fortunately both Tom and I have so far avoided COVID but I have suffered chronic headaches that continue to bother me.
Tom’s most recent book is 2020s Foresight : Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, co-authored with Dwight Friesen. It came out during the pandemic and he conducted a number of webinars. This year he also led a Creativity workshop with a local Presbyterian church. Let Tom know if your church or college would be interested in a futures creativity workshop.twsine@gmail.com
Christine and I (Tom) have a growing concern for the environment. Thankfully Gen Y & Gen Z are leading the charge in environmental advocacy. The growing advocacy of Gen Next in groups like Young Evangelicals for Climate Action need our aggressive support. We are delighted that Circlewood, headed by James Amadon, which grew out of Mustard Seed Associates, just secured a grant for $230,000 from Murdoch Charitable Trust. They plan to begin construction of their center for environmental action on the land we deeded to them on Camano Island.
Both Christine and Tom welcome opportunities to shift from Zoom visits to working directly with friends in the US and abroad.
Please let us know what you are both celebrating and need prayers for as we race into Advent 2022. We look forward to hearing from you.
Wishing you your family a renewing advent, joyous Christmas and a new year filled with new opportunities.
Tom, Christine and Goldie Sine.