t minus six days

It's hard to believe we're starting up in less than a week. God's just done some far out things in bringing this together from donated sound systems to the right blend of people to get us off the ground.
The energy here is a little frenetic among the staff. When that first service is going we'll be knowing it's a God thing and that's the way it should be.
What's worship going to be like at Mosaic? That's gonna depend on the worshippers. What's your worship like? Not just on Sunday, but the other six days. I hope the worship at Mosaic reflects the worship of the believers the other six days. See ya there.

Creative Team Meeting

Mosaic Prospects--In addition to Mosaic Staff fun day, I did enjoy some more fulfilling prospects of the future. Through networking I see a drama team coming together. I also see the fruits of our creativity in the planning meeting.

John brought chicken. We had dinner. I brought the M&M's and Doug brought cake. Doug Stephens may just be coming on board to help out with a few things.Corinne Brown, Susan Pasini and Chris Pitotti may also be on board. I am glad about it.Brenda also helped me figure out a new vision for The Twelve Days that is a lot more workable. I'm now just thinking about having the event for 2 hours a night only and making it a much more casual atmostsphere. This seems a lot easier for me to accomplish.

The Logo

After tweaking it a bit...this is it!

We found a new font...Sherwood, which really is Uncial under a different moniker. I'm happy to have had some input in it. From Lisa:

Eric -
I really liked your original concept of the Uncial font with the cross in the O. I was tinkering a little too. I found a heart mosaic vase on-line and pulled it apart and used it in the middle of the O/Cross.
I have attached it. We can talk about it tomorrow.
Would you mind coming a little early tomorrow, like 3:45 to set up chairs for Pursuit. John won't be there.
Thanks!
Lisa Greer Mosaic Fellowship

Logo Prototype

I didn't like the idea that I saw about the logo for Mosaic, so I worked on my own. This is the prototype I came up with. I guess I felt obligated to have an opinion because I am the Worship Arts Director. I still don't know what that means yet. I guess it has to do with things artistic. I don't know how I feel about that ... a little overwhemed...what else is new?

John liked it. Maybe we'll tweak it a bit.

Resurgence Conference

I'm at a worship conference in Seattle. It has a very Seattle feel and a very sincere feel also. I am revisiting some ideas about worship and I am seeing how I don't measure up. I am concerned about this because I believe that John is in essence asking me to be the worship pastor. Although, he is not calling it that.

"We define our hell and heaven. In order to get from hell to our heaven we need a functional savior. i.e. to get from being lonely to not being lonely one must need the functional savior of a companion. How does idolatry capture us? Will be enslaved by what we fear or what we adore? Worship is a worldview. Permeates all aspects of life. "--Mark Driscoll, teacher pastor, Mars Hill Church

Refiguring the Christmas Plan

I met with the Repsolds (John and Sandy) as well as the Greers (Lisa and Charlie) today. This was good. I was nervous coming into the meeting because I was worried that John and I were just going to have to go our separate ways.

My logic going into this has become that we really shouldn't do a Christmas musical like he origianally wanted. It's just too big. I was worried that would seem like I was saying, "my play or no play," but honestly, I was worried about the scope of the project even when it was my play.

Anyway, we already pulled the ad, though I feared it wasn't in time. Not so, but I'll get to that later.

We met at a coffee shop on the south hill. The meeting actually went really well. The Greers were in agreement that a Christmas musical was not the greatest idea. We decided on a more artistic approach called the Twelve Days of Mosaic. We will start Christmas or the day after and put up twelve nights of performances by local artists--drama, improv, bands, artists. All that. It should be fun. We'll put the production up at the soon to be running coffee shop.

I feel a lot better about things now. I feel better about working with John again.

The Hope of Christmas . . . dashed!

I got a call from John. He's worried about the play being too Japanese aimed. I told him that it was Japanese targeted! Kari read it and was concerned about it. She shared her concerns with John! John read it and he agreed. We are pulling the ad from the Inlander. I'm so disappointed not only that the play isn't going to go up but also in John. We've done this type of thing before, he gives me the authority, OK and go ahead on something and then pulls the rug out from under me. I'm upset and I do wonder if this relationship is going to work.

The Hope of Christmas, moving forward

On Sunday night, Brenda and I went to Kirk and Stephanie's. We had a good old time. They were giving me all the dirt on what's been going on with CYT while I have been gone. I also pitched the idea of The Hope of Christmas to her as our winter pre-launch event.

She got excited about it and she agreed to help me promote it so I could start auditions. A few days later, she came up with this.

Mosaic will have space to have the auditions downtown. We're going to open a coffee house downtown. Way cool! I'm going to submit the ad to The Inlander Magazine to go out the week after next. I sent out an audition notice as well:

Hey Friends,

Mosaic Arts is putting on a show this Christmas and we need some help putting it on. It’s a community theater type gig not affiliated with CYT, Lake City Playhouse or any other established theater in Spokane. Although, I know most of you from those organizations. We’re looking for actors, actresses, backstage crew, musicians, make-up, costumes etc. If you want more info, contact me at melodrameric@comcast.net or ring me up at 325-3472..

New Worship Surroundings:

From John:

"While The Big Easy in downtown Spokane doesn’t conjure up visions of worship services for most church-goers, we really believe God is up to something very unique with this probable Sunday venue targeted at the 300,000+ unchurched of Spokane. In a conversation with Pastor Ken Ortiz of Calvary Chapel recently he told me, "We’ve been trying to get in to the Big Easy for years and the door has never opened!" Guess now is God’s time and even more surprisingly, we seem to be God’s instruments for this new outreach.
Well, having walked through the concert hall and restaurant again with a larger group of leaders, we learned a few new things. The Big Easy, having been bought recently by a national entertainment group, will be up-scaling, changing its name, undergoing renovations and in general seeking to reposition itself in Spokane. Every manager we’ve talked to there has been super-excited to have us there. They have even offered a few surprising accommodations such as covering all the bar areas with curtains and including Mosaic Fellowship in their weekly advertisements in publications like The Inlander…all at no extra charge!

Speaking of their managers, as we were leaving after our walk-through, we helped a fellow whose car had stalled at a nearby intersection. As he hopped out of his car to thank us, he asked, "Would you guys ever like tickets to a concert?" Funny question for a guy whose car can't make it through the intersection! Turns out he is the General Manager of, guess what? The Big Easy! Don’t tell me God doesn’t order our steps! I think God has his sights on the souls of a few people working, living and playing downtown, don’t you?"

The Hope of Christmas Revived

I talked to John yesterday at his parent's lake house. I committed to helping him with this church plant for one year. He asked me to officially do this pre-launch musical production at The Met. It's actually called The Bing now. Anyway, I presented my idea about The Hope of Christmas to him. That's a three act original script I wrote while in Japan. I didn't think he would go for it, but he did! I also presented the idea to Kari Papst. I'm hoping she will be my musical director.

If this is really going up, there is a lot to do. I have to schedule auditions. Where will I have them? When? I feel overwhelmed and excited at the same time. The writing of the play wasn't a waste of time after all! I wasn't able to produce in Japan but it looks as if it will find an audience here in Spokane.
+

Getting Together with John

It's been very hard getting together with John so that he can share is vision for this church plant with me. I feel I need to be on board if we are going to work together. He keeps on changing appointments on me. We were set to meet on Tuesday but he changed his plans. We were then set for Saturday morning but then he changed his plans after that in favor of helping Art Cosgrove move.

"About Saturday a.m., since I talked to you I found out that Art needs help moving that morning. That move will start at 8:00 a.m. Any chance we could move ours to later, say 10 or 11? Or how would you like to join the moving men? :) Just let me know. Either way, since I'll be out by 5 mile, perhaps meeting someplace farther north would be better.

Let me know."

It seems that if John wants me on board he had better start making some time for me!

Whoa!

Things seem to be going kind of fast. John's already got the theater set up for us to do this musical thing. That's going to be difficult. Kind of exciting though:

"Dear Eric,

Before I forget, when exactly are you arriving in the U.S.? Anything we can do to help the move? Need a truck or van to meet you? Just let us know.

I talked with Michael Smith from The Met/Bing. Here are the dates that are currently open:
December 1, Saturday (cost $700 plus $27/hr. for tec person)
Dec. 4, 5, 6 (Tues-Thurs)
Dec. 17-19
Dec. 23 (Sun.--he cautioned against this as Sun. p.m. is usually poorly attended, especially so close to Christmas)
The Singing Nuns currently have Dec. 11-14 booked but apparently they have become The Splitting Nuns as something has happened to the group. He was going to check and see if they still wanted those dates or were no longer a group. We can put our name in for any open dates without charge so...what do you think? What date(s) would you like me to ask him to set aside? I'm thinking that either a couple of week nights or two on a single Saturday. You're better at the call, however. Let me know what you think.

The weather has cooled a bit, thankfully. Life Center went public with the church plant yesterday in their services so it's pretty common knowledge now.

Looking forward to your soon return,

John"

My Involvement Begins

I received this from John Repsold:

"Dear Eric,

Just been thinking of you a lot lately. Am meeting tonight with some of the worship/music guys on board with the new plant. I know you are probably pretty busy with the upcoming move about now. We're praying for the transition.

Don't know what your thoughts are about this fall. Currently it looks like I will be the only full-time guy on the plant. We'll send out an update first week in August as that is the 6-month waiting period mark since my resignation. Basically we had over 100 people at the two BBQs we hosted with strong interest in the new church plans. We'll be starting home groups and leader training in the fall with the worship service launch not slated until Dec. We're currently thinking that if you would be up to directing something for Christmas (perhaps at the Met) we would time the launch to follow right on the heals of that. Would love to see the production open to the public (auditions) as that would get us rubbing shoulders with more of our community and get them inviting their friends. What are your thoughts on that?

What is your current/future employment status going to be? When you have some clarity on that, let me know. There is a possibility I could get some funds for a part-time position for Music & Arts Coordinator. Let's talk.

We're headed to Canada tomorrow so will be out of communication range for about a week. Look forward to your soon return.

Blessings and journey's mercies,

John"

I'm still in Japan now. After he resigned from Fourth Memorial Church such a short time ago. This really seems like a big step...maybe too big a step. Maybe John needs to get back up on the horse after getting knocked off by the elders at Fourth Memorial. A Christmas Musical. I'm excited at the idea. I'll hit the ground running as soon as I get back to Spokane. I wrote back:

"John,

Thanks for the e-mail. I have been praying lately for doors to open to where God might be working. I am interested in the Christmas outreach. I want to talk more about that when I get back to Spokane. I’d love it if there was even a part time position next winter or spring. The only thing I seem to have lined up is a teaching stint for the fall semester of CYT. That’s a whopping two hours a week, so I may be looking for something else also just to keep me busy.

I look forward to seeing you all again.

Eric