One word.... WOW! Hold on let me spell that backwards... WOW! 

Warning: I'm only writing this because I've tried to read and I've been falling asleep. I make no promises on value of content.

Back to... WOW! I had a great day yesterday. I experienced ELEMENTS. Elements is the commissioning celebration at Mosaic,www.mosaic.org . 3 global mission teams (china, spain, russia), 1 missionary family (china), and 94 new staff members. Yes, 94 new staff members. Let me clarify what and why "staff" members. When you want to become a member at mosaic you "join staff". It's a process, you have to go through "Life in Christ" class (8 week class of 5 core values of Mosaic), "Life in Church" history of the church, be baptized, commit to tithing at least 10% to the church. Why the title "volunteer staff"? To quote Erwin from yesterday, " We chose this name because for ages the term member meant this decision gave you special priveledges that others didn't get. You received when you became a member. When you come on staff at Mosaic you are committing to give not looking to receive."

I was just struck by the community that I'm involved in. We spent and hour in "Crash Training" before the service. It was an hour of Q & A on evangelism. The group taught each other. Most importantly, we had material to discuss. This tribe is engaging the lives of the people around them. Evangelism is not a gifting here, it's a way of life. Just like all organizations, it all starts at the top. Since Erwin nearly every week shares a story of an spiritual interaction he's had from the week prior, we all know that to be Mosaic we are engaging this culture with God. One very inspiring metaphor prayed for us (the 94 new staff) was that we would now after receiving from Mosaic we would now move out of the center to the edges into the darkess of this world... now pushing out in order to pull others in. This is a community of influence. I have been in many communities of faith before, but never one quite like this one. A great piece for me is that it's lead by "NP" not "SJ"  personalities. That's Meyer's - Briggs jargon for Big picuture, open ended thinkers not detail-oriented, clean cut thinkers. Everything is always shown where it fits in the scheme the why is explained and a vast majority of the time the how isn't even known... no pretending here...we're dealing with GOD!

That's been one of the top most refreshing things about this transition so far...

I've got a lot to say tonight. a lot of life. i'll just splatter a bit and keep this thing going. i'm sitting at Cedars-Sinai. it's 2:25 in the AM. 4:25 in the AM Chicago time (the time zone I started the day in...so it's kinda like i got an extra 2 hours of existence...minus 4 for the plane ride, those never count...hmmmmm) and i only have 4 more shifts to go after this one. it's been a big week. i got a call one week ago hearing that Mark Wittig's brother was in the tragic cycling accident. pretty broken up by that and hands tied, tried to sleep, back to work that night, to church sunday morning got the call from Mark that the docs said he'd be brain dead. not an easy conversation or prayer time. i saw in that conversation the rawest emotion of life...desperation. blessed by God minutes later, Neil Nakamoto not only released me from my ORIGINS responsibilities, but gave me his frequent flyer miles to send me back to chicago for the week. i broke down and wept at the goodness of God. as expected, and emotional rollercoaster of a week. family. it's a complicated thing. relationships are sticky. moments last lifetimes. roles are always there and are intensified at stress. words matter in the moment. who you really are finds you when you least expect it. a visitor (myself and Deb) really has no spot in family conversations about death. we stayed there 3 days. it was a realization that my words or widsom wasn't needed, just my presence was enough. we decided after it all hit the fan that we'd step out of the situation to free Mark up to be there fully for his family and not have to worry about us at all. we weren't really helping anymore. we ended up making one last visit with a bunch of Mark's stuff from Chicago.

I got to see afresh what witnessing is really all about this week. mark was a true witness of God. he constantly had his eyes open and his heart lifted up in prayer. when he saw God move he not only noticed it for himself, but pointed it out for the crowd...that's witnessing. his ultimate will be at the funeral doing the ulogy. there's a ton of college cycling folk that are really angry with a god that would save matthew last year just to let him die this year... mark will speak on the goodness of God over this past year. simple, huh???

Got to share the heart of God with a co-worker Valerie tonight. She's into "white magic" and "angel calling". By the end of the conversation she says, "I'd be much more up for Jesus than Christianity". Ahhhhh, Yes!  She's getting closer.

I've got a lot more to share, but need to catch up on my charting. I'll be better at keeping this thing up to date....i'm working on it..

I forgot....Pray for Brad. I met Brad at Starbucks 2 weeks ago, "randomly". I may fill in the details of the story later. Anyways, he's a dude that's been having some drug addictions problems over the past few years. He accepted Christ the next day and we're working on getting together soon. I'll tell the story on here later, but for now Pray the Brad would submit to Jesus and open his mind to new life with Him... He may be getting baptized tomorrow!!!

with love and grace,

Currently Reading An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind By Erwin Raphael McManus see related

21 Days.....no entries!  What is wrong with me!?!?!?! I'm at home in Southern Illinois this weekend. Right now in Wayne City, population 1,200. Deborah's flown down from Chicago to meet the family. Everythings going great. Hope they don't ask her about her past.......smile, just kidding.

Here's to kicking off with some new thoughts and updates on life. I'll fill you in more later...

So, I found this quote tonight. it deems appropriate for where i am right now. redefining the meaningful....

Alan Cohen once wrote, “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.”