On Sunday at Mosaic we want to regroup and rethink, just for various reasons its pretty clear that our format hasn’t been working. I think this is mainly due to circumstances rather than some fundamental flaw in what we tried to do. Anyway we have lost some cohesion and momentum as a result and want to try and regain it. We spent some time before thinking through our values and I have reproduced our conclusions below so that they can be a basis for our discussion. This is who we decided we are as Mosaic, what matters to us, what shapes and motivates us. Now we have to decide how to embody and express it. Please have a read through before Sunday

Our values are the DNA of who we are as a movement of Christ Followers, organic DNA determines how a body looks and functions and our “communal” DNA, our values should do the same for us as the Body of Christ. They should both express our values and also “shape” us to be authentic Christ followers.

I am still “shaping” our values right now into the most readable and understandable form but what they are is pretty clear if how we express them in words isn’t it

Mission … We want to join Jesus in his incarnational mission in our world, mission includes, going, how we go, incarnationally mainly, attractional mission being secondary and the goal of mission to serve the growth of the Kingdom of God. Being “missional” is about being shaped individually and collectively by God’s Mission.

Community …. We want to live not as a group of people who attend the same building for events but as the interrelated and interdependent community that is the Body of Christ. However we don’t believe in a “holy huddle” we believe in what has been called “commitas” a community shaped by purpose, mission in our case.

Love … Quite simple Jesus shaped love is to be the aroma of everything we do

Wholistic … We don’t believe in a sacred / secular divide. We believe we are as much the Church when we apart as when we are together. We believe we are all called to have a vocation which is expressed outside the church. We are committed to 24/7 discipleship

So I have been thinking about the BELLS acrostic which was developed by the Church in Sydney. I think it was great but while discussing it with others I think we got the feeling we wanted to develop something that was “uniquely” ours. So here is my idea below. Some of it probably needs some explanation which I’ll attempt to do at some point when we get together. I am interested in your reaction to it.

Remember this is no paper exercise, this is what we would expect of ourselves as those committed to being part of the core of Mosaic. Without bring legalistic about it we’ll be asking each other how we are doing living this out. Its challenging, its not easy to do, it will require effort and sacrifice at times, but hey isn’t that what Jesus said being His Disciple would be like?

M … Meet three times a week. Have a meal, coffee etc three times a week with someone inside the community and someone outside of it, and an extra to be expressed either way
O … Orientate your day. Orientate your day around Christ and his Kingdom by beginning each day by saying the Jesus Creed
S … Serve three times a week. An act of serving or blessing, big or small to someone inside the community and someone outside of it, and an extra to be expressed either way
A … Attend. Make it a priority to be part of the Mosaic Missional Communities, Gatherings when they happen.
I …. Interact with culture. By 1. Being part of a group not connected with Christianity or Church on a weekly basis. 2. Attending an event with no church/christian connections monthly. 3. Reading (listening to) a good non Christian book or watching non Christian video / film bimonthly.
C … Connect with God. By 1. Constantly reading the Gospels 2. Reading another book of the Bible 3. Listening to God in contemplative prayer for at least an hour a week, either in one go or broken into segments. 4. Reading (listening to) a good Christian book or watching Christian teaching on video bimonthly.