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    606 West 3rd Ave., Spokane, WA 99201

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Feb 14, 2016

Mosaic 2015 Annual Report

Mosaic 2015 Annual Report

Passage: Isaiah 26:12

Preacher: John Repsold

Keywords: accomplishments, future, past, report

Summary:

This message looks at the biblical basis for reporting on what has happened in the past and making plans for the future...plus doing exactly that for 2015 and 2016.

Detail:

Deeds & Plans

Mosaic’s Past 2015…Its Future 2016

February 14, 2016

If you read this week’s email from me, you know that I promised not to preach about Valentine’s Day or romance or sex or cupid or St. Valentine or any number of things that might (or might not) be worthwhile today.  But what I am going to be talking about today is all about LOVE.  It’s about how the love of God has been working in our hearts over this past year, changing us as people and growing our hearts for others.  Today we’re going to do a bit of a short historical inventory of how that love has played out over the past year. 

The Book of Acts in the N.T. is a host of stories about the “actions” of God and people.  Its 28 chapters are a selective narrative of what God and the church were doing for the first 30 years of life after the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

            In Acts 14, Paul & Barnabas are returning from their first missionary journey which had consumed a little over 2 years of their life.  This is what Luke tells us they did when they returned to their sending church, Antioch of Syria. 

27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. 28 And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

This early church, the church in Antioch, considered it worthwhile to gather the whole church in the city together to hear a couple of guys who had been gone for two years talk about all that “God had done through them” and how God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.  It wasn’t considered out of line to talk about what they had done.  It wasn’t considered egotistical.  And the Apostle Paul didn’t demand that he have time to preach an exegetical sermon.  Just sharing about what God was doing was worth calling the whole church together.    

In essence, that’s what we are doing here today.  While we’re not looking back 2 years we are reviewing 1 year.  We’re not talking about 2 missionaries; we’re talking about 150 followers of Christ.  And while we don’t have a half-dozen or dozen churches to show for our work this past year, we do have dozens of people’s lives that have been changed and impacted.  Taking stock of what God has been doing has always been an important part of the church’s life together and worship before God. 

If you read this week’s email, you also know that I cited a verse from Isaiah 26:12.  This chapter is a prophetic psalm of praise that Isaiah says will be sung at some point yet future to his prophecy when the people of God will return to Jerusalem.  While there are lots of very beautiful verses in this section of Isaiah, what I want us to note is the latter part of 26:12 in which Isaiah says,

“Lord, you establish peace for us;
    all that we have accomplished you have done for us.”

As we talk about the things we’ve been able to be a part of this past year as well as the plans we are making for the coming year, I hope that we can have this wonderful balance Isaiah wrote about here—recognizing that there are some things our prayers, our hard work, our giving and service can “accomplish” in the Kingdom BUT at the same time knowing that if anything of lasting value has been done, GOD HAS DONE IT!

So let’s dive into some of the information you have in front of you today in very visual form. 

            First, a HUGE THANKS to the one person who put all this together, Menesia Spade.  She wears more hats at Mosaic than Imelda Marcos had shoes years ago.  Just to give you an idea of some of the functions she has, she greets us all almost every morning at the registration table as you come in the door.  She’s here before most of us arrive and leaves after almost all of us have left.  She is our Mosaic Office Manager, the recording secretary for every staff, FC and MLT meeting, my personal assistant, coordinator of Women’s Connection, bookkeeper, database manager, publications director, purchaser, planner and…candlestick maker! And I don’t even know everything she does. 

And she may not want me to tell you, but I’m going to anyway because we’re family.  She does all this while living with some very difficult and untreatable chronic pain issues.  This is one women all of us should highly esteem.  

Let’s start from the right side of the graphic at the top of the page (like we’re reading Hebrew, right to left instead of left to right)—2015 Annual Report. 

LEADERSHIP:  This past year there have been 18 people who have taken up the mantle of formal leadership at Mosaic by being on one of the 2 leadership teams—MLT and FC.  (This doesn’t include the Staff Team (though there is some overlap) nor the Changing Lives Leadership Team...nor Youth…nor Men’s or Women’s Connection…nor Children’s leaders…nor…you get the point.  Here’s how Mosaic is structured in terms of leadership:

[Show structure slide and talk through.]

LEADERSHIP

  1. Ministry Leadership Team [MLT] [Show ]—the governing board of the organization. It’s responsible for all the legal, financial/fiduciary, policy and ministry management issues of Mosaic.  They must pray, discuss, deliberate and work through some of the more difficult and weighty challenges that any church faces.  Most are regular Mosaic members just like you who fit this sometimes demanding and time-intensive ministry into their regular work week.  I’m personally deeply indebted to each of them for all their dedication and wise counsel. 
  2. Finance Council: [Show ]

This smaller team keeps an eye on budgeting, giving, and anything that has to do with financial management of the church.  That has included our start-up businesses like The Mosaic Bike Shop.  It’s also included our Capital Campaign and building acquisition task. 

These two groups alone have put in roughly 4,000 hours of teamwork in 2015. 

  1. Staff: [Show ]  If you turn to the bottom half of the front page, on the right hand side you will see the graphics regarding the paid pastoral staff.  We’ve had 2 full-time staff (Menesia and me—the larger graphics) and 5 part-time staff (from 5-20 hours/week).  You can see how and where those staff spend their time.  One change in staff this year was Chris Buck (bottom right pic) who resigned and moved to Oregon to be closer to his children and grandchildren.  At the present, we do not plan to refill that position. 

Speaking of staff changes, as most of you know, Eric is getting his Masters in Teaching from Whitworth currently.  He plans to transition to volunteer status sometime this summer and to pursue a teaching position in the area as soon as possible.  We’re currently working on how to reconfigure most of his current responsibilities into existing or revised staff positions as well as turning as increasing volunteer ownership of some of them.  

FELLOWSHIP & WORSHIP

Now turn to the top part of the back side—“Experiencing the Heart of God in the Heart of Spokane”

This category includes…

  • Children’s Ministry
  • Life Groups
  • Men’s & Women’s Connection
  • Youth
  • Hospitality
  • Worship

These 6 ministry areas involve over 140 people in serving and ministry every month. That number doesn’t include the number of people ministered TO every month.   You could say that this is ministry we do into each other’s lives.  It’s our body life and family care that goes on between us.

            While some of you are involved in multiple ministries in a month, this is a very encouraging statistic.  Most churches have the 80/20 challenge—20% of the people doing 80% of the ministry.  That’s marvelously not true for Mosaic. We have a very high level of participation in ministry. 

            That is one of the blessings of being a smaller church.  More of you see the need to be personally involved in ministry.  And that changes you and our life together.  This is perhaps one of the hallmarks of Mosaic:  we are a serving church that grows through serving. 

OUTREACH-This involves not only the bottom of the 2nd page of this report with Changing Lives and our Mosaic Community Bike Shop.  It also includes the 2 columns above entitled “Pioneer Apartments” and “Downtown Ministry Partners”. 

  1. Changing Lives—ask Bob and Darla to share. [Insert SLIDES of Changing Lives.]
  2. Mosaic Community Bike Shop—Ask Doug or Jason to share.
  3. Pioneer Outreach—recognize Derik and Zoe; Talk about James Noriega and our support of him.  This partnership is breaking new ground for Pioneer Human Services and causing them to change the way they approach their very business and philosophy of non-profit.
  4. Downtown Ministry Partners:  In addition to the serving stats there, Mosaic earmarked over $20,000 of our 2015 income for other ministries impacting the downtown core and Spokane as a city. 

ADMINISTRATION & PAYROLL

See Financial Stats and Giving By Category

FACILITIES

  • Buildings & Maintenance:
    • Moved offices, moved worship space, put most of our stuff in 2 storage facilities.
    • Cleaning work: Kudos to BILL Easley!
    • Monthly cost: a little less than $4,000 for office space and meeting space.  All going to lease costs.  Keep this in mind as we talk in a moment about how we plan to change that and save ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next 5-10 years. 
  • Building Search: [map slide]  We’ve been involved in a continual search for a home for Mosaic over the past 2+ years.  Here’s the reality. 
    • We’ve viewed or investigated close to 60 properties in the last 20 months.
    • A handful (green) that have adequate future potential.
    • There is no “perfect solution” in downtown Spokane.
    • We have some very difficult criteria and realities we must deal with in looking for the right kind of fit.
      • Parking
      • Street visibility and retail access
      • Multi-use capabilities (business hours, office, S.S. space, youth, etc…)
      • Larger meeting area
      • Close to residential buildings and youth

We’ll talk more about this in just a moment. 

But for now, the bottom line of ALL this is:  We’re a church of volunteers passionately committed to serving other people with the heart of Jesus Christ.

  • 300+ volunteer positions manned by a congregation of under 200.
  • 17,900+ volunteer hours given in service of the Lord Jesus this past year through Mosaic.

“…all that we have accomplished, God has done for us!”

FUTURE PLANS—So What’s Ahead?

Before we jump into what might lie ahead for us in 2016, let me direct your thoughts to a few passages in God’s Word which speak about making plans for the future. 

            There are many different schools of thought when it comes to the future and what we can or can’t do to influence it. 

  • The secular humanist believes that we are masters of our own destiny…makers of our own fate. There is no room for God in that belief…unless it is the god of self.   The problem with that approach to life is that we all know we don’t get to simply choose our future.  There are many forces beyond our control that sometimes control us and life around us.  Just ask victims of a catastrophic natural disaster like Japan’s tsunami in 2011 or Nepal’s earthquake in 2015.
  • On the other hand, fatalists, be they religious or non-religious, believe that nothing you do can change what “fate”…or God…has decreed will happen to you. From tripping down a flight of stairs to being killed in a fatal car crash, all of life is out of our control.  We are simply the outworking of laws of physics, blind chance or divine decree. 
  • Into that vast spectrum of thought about how the future plays out, the Bible presents a clear alternative—a balance. On the one hand it acknowledges that God is sovereign everything that happens in this universe.  He is powerful enough to create, alter, direct or destroy anything in this universe that is within his divine will, decree and nature.  But within that divine will, decree and nature, God has also allowed for a large measure of human freedom.  While we cannot change everything about our lives, we can change many things.  Yet nothing can change or happen apart from divine involvement, permission or will. 

As contradictory and at times impossible as the working together of our freedom and God’s sovereignty seems, that is precisely what numerous scriptures affirm.  Let me give you a few examples.

I Chronicles 28—The Planning for and Building of Solomon’s Temple

David summoned all the officials of Israel to assemble at Jerusalem…[and he lists everyone called to the assembly].

2 King David rose to his feet and said: “Listen to me, my fellow Israelites, my people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it.3 But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood.  [He goes on to describe how Solomon was chosen among all his sons to be the one to build this temple.]

 6 He said to me: ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. 7 I will establish his kingdom forever if he is unswerving in carrying out my commands and laws, as is being done at this time.’

8 “So now I charge you in the sight of all Israel and of the assembly of the Lord, and in the hearing of our God: Be careful to follow all the commands of the Lord your God, that you may possess this good land and pass it on as an inheritance to your descendants forever.

9 “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.10 Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.”

11 Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. 12 He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things.

Do you see the interplay here between what God had put in David’s heart by His Spirit and WHO God had decreed would actually do it? 

Do you see the interplay between what God promises in response to certain human obedience and what people can do to interrupt God’s best for them? 

The scriptures are full of this kind of divine-human dance when it comes to plans and dreams. 

Psalm 20:4-- May [the LORD] give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.

Proverbs 16:3,4-- Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
    and he will establish your plans.

4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
    even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Proverbs 16:9-- In their hearts humans plan their course,
    but the Lord establishes their steps.

Isaiah 32 speaks of the coming of a Kingdom of Righteousness that will be very different from the nations and rulers we have known and still know today.  There is a day when “a king” will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with true justice.  And then God contrasts that with what we so often experience from the hands of evil politicians and rulers.  We pick it up in vs. 5-- No longer will the fool be called noble
    nor the scoundrel be highly respected.
6 For fools speak folly,
    their hearts are bent on evil:
They practice ungodliness
    and spread error concerning the Lord;
the hungry they leave empty
    and from the thirsty they withhold water.
7 Scoundrels use wicked methods,
    they make up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
    even when the plea of the needy is just.
8 But the noble make noble plans,
    and by noble deeds they stand.

Friends, you will know either the nobility or the evil of a person’s character by the plans they make.  The real question is NOT “will I make plans for tomorrow…and next year…and next generation.”  The only question is, “What KIND of plans will we make?” 

Making NO PLANS is little better than making evil plans.

But making NOBLE PLANS not only reveals that we are truly noble people; those noble plans inevitably lead to noble deeds that become the very way in which we have the strength and stamina with which to “stand” in the days of evil in which we live. 

            The very fact that we serve a God who has plans for us…good plans for a good future…should cause anyone who wants to be more like Christ to embrace both the making of “noble plans” as well as the hard work and noble actions that must go into realizing them.

In Jeremiah 29:11-13, God tells us, “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

God’s plans are to prosper us and to give us a future.  At the same time, the carrying out of those plans are somehow tied to our actions of either seeking God “with all our hearts” or not.  Again, this is a divine-human dance in which both partners must enter into the dance if anything good and beautiful is to come from it.  (See Romans 1:10, 13; 1 Thess. 2:18; 3:11.)

            So with James 4:15 we say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 

That is precisely the spirit with which we must make noble plans.  And it is in that spirit that I bring to you some of the plans we are making for the next few months and years—“…if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do these things.” 

#1. We will acquire property and the use of property in the heart of our city that enables us to move forward with multiple ministries that impact our city for Christ.

  • We believe that means purchasing the former Stewart Title Building at the corner of 3rd and Howard.
    • We will move our offices there.
    • We will partner with Unite Family Services and YFC to minister to parents, children, youth and families 7 days a week both within and outside our congregation.
  • We believe that means leasing, for $1/year, 2,000 square feet of space from the Pioneer Human Services in the Pioneer Pathway Bld. On Howard, adjacent to the Title Bld. Property.
    • If we are able to do the envisioned renovations for under $100,000, this will save us several hundred thousand dollars over the course of 5-10 years, will give us congregational meeting space and will allow us to have a daily business presence and event venue that can impact not only this neighborhood but hundreds of lives.
    • We will still have to do multiple services on Sundays. But the smaller venue will require closer contact in a part of our city where isolation reigns and non-relationship holds people captive.

#2. We will continue to reach into our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ through strategic ministries, partnerships and businesses.

  • Ministries
    • Changing Lives
  • Partnerships:
    • Pioneer Pathways
    • Youth for Christ
    • UGM
    • Unite Family Ministries
    • Changing Lives >> Community Court
    • The Way of Business
    • Others???
  • Businesses
    • Bike Shop
    • Coffee Shop
    • Unite

#3.  We will seek to significantly strengthen the experience of spiritual community and shared growth in Jesus Christ.

  • More intimate worship setting and services.
  • More interconnecting “business as mission” opportunities and options.
    • More volunteers in the businesses
    • More experienced volunteers in the consulting and managing (Business Consulting Team)
      • Finance
      • Marketing
      • Administration & Management
      • Ministry
      • Operations
      • Customer service
    • More volunteer opportunities for weekly ministry
      • Construction & renovation
      • Security
      • All aspects of weekend worship
      • Teaching & mentoring—all ages, in increased settings (YFC, Radical Mentoring, Marriage Mentoring, etc.)

So right now you are either excited or scared to death!  Either your head is ready to explode or your heart is about to skip a few beats. 

  • These are a lot of “noble plans”
  • They will require a lot of “noble deeds”
  • By God’s gracious hand and our hard work, there will be such a divine-human partnership this year people in the heart of our city that many will come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and many will grow in their experience with God .

QUESTIONS???

APP: 

  • So what is God calling you to do?
  • What “noble deeds” will you engage in to see these “noble plans” come into existence?
  • What is your NEXT STEP in “experiencing the heart of God in the heart of our city?”