He WANTS us!

These last few weeks I've been building my desk in my basement. I'm making my own space down there. It really is kind of neat, but it has not been without its difficulties.

In addition to waiting for the space to be cleared and all I actually had to build the desk, one of those Sauder jobs. But, you see, I'm not very mechanically inclined. I had to follow the instructions ever so carefully to get it right and even then I screwed it up a few times and had to undo some of the work and redo it the righ way. Eventually, I got it finished and I am very happy with the work.

I think building Mosaic is very similar. The instructions that God has for a perfect church are very particular, and we are bound to screw it up to the point of having to re-work a few things from time to time.

I'm glad that God is so graceful though. He really has blessed our endeavor so far. He gives us grace where we don't have the know how. We can't ruin His work. I guess that's the wonderful thing about it--he includes us in the process because he loves us and is excited to see what WE are going to become through it! HE doesn't need us, he WANTS us!

The Need for Entertainment

We really don't have anything for children at this point, that is children from 6 onward. We expect them to just sit in service and be quiet. Up front we talk about how Mosaic is to be a family and everything is casual. Kids getting up to go to the bathroom two or three times in the service is really a distraction for some people.

The thing is many of our members come from churches where there was a well organized kid's program in place. They are used to dropping the kids off and getting what they need from church. So, we now have a generation of church goers who don't know how to train their kids to both sit in church or to serve at church. They like their kids are their to be entertained, except they might call it being fed.

Visionary or Team?

I've been pondering this since I watched the opening ceremony to the 2008 Olympic games. They didn't hand over the artistic vision to a committee they handed it over to a visionary directory and supplied him with the resources to pull off what we envisioned.

As I struggle with the direction of the Worship Arts at Mosaic, I wonder if this is the direction that would be best for us--to communicate a vision for a worship service to a creative team as opposed to just giving them the sermon notes.

CHINESE STUDENT VISIT:

"We said our final farewells to the 14 Chinese exchange students we hosted last week just last night (Thursday) as they came through Spokane on their way from Glacier Park back to Tri-Cities and on to China. A HUGE THANKS to all of you who hosted these great kids. God did work and much seed was planted and tended. One of the students wanted to be baptized in the Tri-Cities before returning to China. That may happen today! Looks like there will be more opportunities to do this in future years and even send some of our own to China to teach others for a couple of weeks. Praise God for a global Gospel!"