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mosaic

Mosaic Partners

by Lon on November 30, 2009

At Mosaic, no matter who you are, or where you’re from, you are welcome with us. Our hope is that we can create a radically inclusive space where even those who may often feel most on the fringe can also feel a deep sense of belonging.

While technically we do offer ‘memberships’, if you’re not a member, we want to re-iterate that there is nothing you need to do for us to love you or accept you. Our membership provides no benefits or privileges other than additional opportunities to give and to serve.

We try to stress that members at Mosaic are in fact ‘partners’ because they are committed to joining God and participating in actively living a life of faith, love, and hope for the good of the world.

If you’d like to join us as a member and partner, we’d love to have you on board. Feel free to speak to us personally about doing so. You can also find an application form here.

If you’ve already been partnering with us this past year, we want to say a collective Thank You for being a part of this great adventure and taking us thus far! We don’t keep an unending ‘membership roll’ as we understand that people transition to different life stages and communities. We ask that you reflect and recommit to Mosaic as an active Christ-following partner in the community each year. Annual Renewal Form.

We’re currently also making an open invitation for nominations to our leadership team. This entails being an active partner as well as spiritually and strategically guiding our community. Nomination Form

All these forms and more can be found on our partners page. If you need the password or have any questions feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

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Why Thanks & Giving

by Lon on October 14, 2009

There’s a lot of what we do, that sometimes may be different from your typical church, that is loaded with meaning, but we don’t often explain. ie. a few thoughts on this past Thanks & Giving

- We celebrate not because of simply it’s that thanksgiving time of the year, but because Thanks & Giving are very much at the heart of the Gospel. It’s with thanks that Christ broke the break, and it was with life, body, and blood that he gave to humanity. We’re called to do the same

- We began with the Jesus Meal / Eucharist / Communion because that’s usually is the space we create dedicated to allowing God to speak to you. Rather than ending our gathering, since this was a time of communal sharing, we wanted to allow you to share in response to our collective moments with God.

- We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We provided time for people to prepare before our gathering and also spontaneously share because we truly value your voices. God is in a conversation with every single one of you, whether you know it or not, and it enriches our community when we get a chance to tune in as well.

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A guest review on our church

by Lon on October 2, 2009

I got permission to post this on our community blog by a guest who has been touring different churches recently.

Address: The Monte Carlo Inn – 8900 Woodbine Avenue (near Applecreek)

The one-room church, the homey church. For days after going to Mosaic, I was thinking and saying “small church, small church”. There was something rather attractive about this humble gathering of 30 people in the rented conference room. It reminded me of UTCCF, back in the old days when we were in Pendarves Room at the International Student Centre. You gotta stack chairs, u-haul the projector and sound equipment, and the quoted starting time doesn’t really matter. There are old folks, young folks, and even younger folks. The group wasn’t so small to be confining, but wasn’t so big that you wouldn’t know everyone on a personal level, eventually. Part of me was thinking — I know this setting. Different people, same church. Maybe it was because I ate breakfast, but I felt alive that day.

I enjoyed the expositional-style sermon. I don’t hear many of them anymore, for some reason. Can it be that the verse-by-verse analysis has gone on the wayside because it’s not catchy or exciting enough? I found it very refreshing to see the Bible through another person’s eyes, to glimpse part of the speaker himself as he pointed things out along the way. The message hit home on two fronts: the richness of Scripture (if we only take a long hard look, it’s there) and the small-group discussion/application time immediately afterwards. MCBC tries to do the sermon debrief too, but it’s not always effective… maybe it happens when the sermon doesn’t reveal real-life tension in holy callings. I suppose it is the same fine balance as there is in education: one cannot set a goal too lofty that we will give up before even trying, nor set a goal so low we dismiss it, thinking we have already mastered it.

The Eucharist (Holy Communion) was also an interesting experience. They had set up worship stations — tables with “stuff” on it — and it was a self-serve affair. “Stuff” included prayer box, candles, juice, bread. The physicality of having to stand up and move towards the table gave me the impression that while grace is totally free, you still must move to accept it and claim it. Grace doesn’t drop into your lap; some sort of “work out” of salvation is needed. I’ll admit I was fidgety and all distracted while waiting in line. Am I too used to instant service, in an instant society? Maybe it’s a picture of how the abundant life is received… slowly, impatiently at times, waiting, wavering between moments of focused reverence and mindless distraction.

Mosaic brought out the small-town charm of Christianity. A place where everyone knows your name, traditions are built indigenously, flexibility is in everything, and creativity has room to experiment.

Sounds like family.

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We’re Twittering!

by Lon on September 30, 2009

Ok, I just set up a twitter account for our community, http://twitter.com/mosaicbaptist

I’m sure you’ve all heard of it if you’re not already on it. Is it just a fad? possibly, but it’s a current medium for communication, and I’m open to ‘all means possible’ as the apostle paul declared.

Very basically for our purposes – it’s a short communication channel – you can think of it as a micro-blog that gets distributed to your twitter client (desktop appilcation, mobile phone / device, etc). There are many other uses for it, but we’ll keep it at that for now.

99% of people just don’t ‘get it’ and it’s something that needs to be used for a period of time with a decent network of people to actually see the value of it. We’ll give it a try here, if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine too, and it can just be a one-way broadcast medium. If you’d rather not try one more techy thing out there, you can always also view the latest 3 ‘tweets’ in the sidebar on the blog here.

Here’s an interesting post on why churches should not twitter – if you’re wondering or have apprehensions.

Otherwise, you can sign yourself up at http://twitter.com
You can ‘follow’ our church community at http://twitter.com/mosaicbaptist
You can follow me personally at http://twitter.com/lon

See you on the flip-side.

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Mosaic Tagline

by Lon on September 23, 2009

We’re looking for input for our current Mosaic tagline/slogan for the website.

Here are a few suggestions people have made – what do you like, do you have other ideas?

- Following Christ, Being the Church, and Serving Humanity
- Making broken things beautiful together
- Following Christ, living in community, and serving humanity
- Worshiping God, following Christ, surrendering to the Holy Spirit
- Surrendering to God, sharing life, serving humanity
- Christ, Community, Cause
- Believing, Belonging, Becoming
- Living by Faith, Love, and Hope Together

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Church Picnic Details

by Lon on August 4, 2009

Come celebrate with us as a church community outdoors!

date/time: August 16, 0900-1600
place: Anchor Park in Holland Landing, East Gwillimbury, google map.
Reserved facilities include a shelter from 9am-4pm, a soccer field from 10am-4pm
Public facilities also include children’s playground, washrooms, BBQ available and biking trail.
Bring your own lunch, bikes, kites, etc.

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God of this city

by Lon on May 14, 2009

[Verse 1]
You’re the God of this City
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

[Verse 2]
You’re the Light in this darkness
You’re the Hope to the hopeless
You’re the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

[Chorus]
For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

If the above is true, how might we join God in what He is doing in the city?

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Mosaic Survey 2008

by Lon on December 17, 2008

Folks – please take a moment to respond to this survey for mosaic if you haven’t already.

Click Here to take survey

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