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Great Post About "Hearing" The Voice Of God in Scripture

Whenever I hear people debate about what a passage in the bible actually means, I can't help but think this debate is moot.

What I mean is this. I believe that God intends a specific message for each person who reads any passage in the bible. The message he intends for you from reading it may not be the message that someone else needs to receive from the same passage.

So keep this in mind when you hear people debating what a passage means. There may be a different answer for each individual, all as valid as the other. The bible is not one-size-fits-all. It is tailored to each individual who reads it and prays for understanding.

Here is the blogpost that promted me to write the above.

Passage to The Almighty
Well things at Brunswick are moving along well, and we're slowly but steadily growing. Part of my "calling" there is teaching Sunday school wherever there is a need. Right now, I'm co-teaching the youth/college class. We're currently doing a study of Colossians. After this, I'm not sure what we'll be going through.

This is where reader participation comes in. Erwin McManus and the Mosaic Church in southern California has a series they are calling "Passages." The whole idea behind this series is to learn to hear the voice of God through the Scriptures. When the voice of God is heard from reading the Bible, it's not just red and black words on pages. Those words come to life as the Scriptures. They become passages... to conversation with God. With that said, I have been thinking about some of these passages that have connected with me. Here are just a few of these passages in my own life:

The Rest of The Story here

Mosaic Miami Church Website
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Mosaic Church is a Mosaic of Culture

I like this blog post from Eric bryant a lot;

Creating a Diverse Community
Part One: An Overview
by Eric Bryant
(originally written for The Origins magazine)

Do you want to be hip? Talk about diversity. Diversity in the new millennium is what mullets were for the 1980s. Conversations about diversity permeate our society. We love to talk about diversity. It is very politically correct. However, achieving diversity is possible in the context of evangelism which is not a politically correct topic. Diversity is the natural result of a church committed to Christ’s mission to reach those within their sphere of influence. When we live, work, or worship in a diverse city, God moves us towards diversity.

Unfortunately, diversity rarely happens at church. Intrinsically we realize that we cannot continue to fill our churches with only the people who look like us and talk like us. In fact, I imagine most church planters and pastors want their churches to become more reflective of the community in which they live. We do not want to segregate our society on Sunday mornings. Take heart, creating a diverse community is possible, but doing so requires tremendous risk and sacrifice.

For the last nine years, I have experienced a diverse community. I am a white guy in a world of color. At Mosaic, we have 80 nationalities represented every Sunday. We are diverse in every area throughout our church including our attenders, ministry teams, and paid leadership. My daughter Trevi has a better chance of growing up to marry a Chen or a Ramirez than to marry a Smith or a Jones. Until recently we had only Latino and Asian American elders. Last fall I became the lone Anglo elder, but the others joke with me that I represent another minority group – the bald white guys.

The Rest of The Story here

Being a member of Mosaic Church in Miami, I can really relate to Eric's post. Mosaic is the first church I have seen that has a membership that truly reflects the community it serves.

There are members who are wealthy, middle class, and poor. There are members from many countries and races. Yet we are a family. A community that worships together. And not just on Sunday. We visit each other's homes for prayer meetings, bible studies, and just to get together sometimes.

If you have not visited a Mosaic Church, you do not know what you are missing. Everyone is welcome. You do not have to dress to impress. Come as you are. You will be welcome.

Mosaic Miami Church Website
Mosaic Miami Church Blog

Tired of Church? - Mosaic Church is the Answer

Church invites people to 'Come as you are'

Dress codes and past histories don't matter at Mosaic Church, which reaches out to people "who've given up on church."

BY JOE RODRIGUEZ
The Wichita Eagle

Mike Hensley was tired of church. He didn't feel he fit in. He just wasn't "feeling it" anymore and hadn't attended regularly for about 15 years.

Then earlier this year, a friend told him about a new church, Mosaic Church. It was small. It didn't matter how he dressed, and the members and the pastor didn't care about his non-church past, the friend told him.

So Hensley went to the church, which holds its services at Truesdell Middle School in south Wichita. And he liked what he saw and what he heard.

"I'm not really a person that's like, all dressed up, as you can tell," Hensley, 24, said after a recent church service. He was wearing a "Sin City" T-shirt, a SWAT cap, shorts and hiking-style boots.

"I just want to be who I am and say, 'This is who I am. I want to get to know more about myself.' "

Mosaic Church started about one year ago with the intention of reaching people like Hensley -- people who have become disconnected with the church because of their past and their concern of being judged by others, according to Pastor Matt Lowe.

Lowe, a former youth pastor at a west Wichita church, decided to start Mosaic because he had a heart for reaching out to those people.

Many other churches also try to reach those who are disconnected.

But Mosaic has taken a more "in your face" style.

When he first launched the church, Lowe went around town putting up signs and poster boards that read: "As Christians, we're sorry for being such self-righteous, judgmental jerks!" Mosaic Church, it said, is a "church for people who've given up on church!"

Many people who have stopped going to church "feel like Christians are hypocrites," Lowe said. "And I recognize that, as Christianity as a whole, that we have been that way to some degree. So I'm trying to take the high road and say, 'Hey, we've got a church here where you can come and you can feel accepted.

"'You can just come here, and you can just see God, you can worship God and you can find God without all of that exterior stuff or worry about your past or what you've done or your sexual orientation or your drug habits.' "

The effort hasn't gone without challenges. Because of the population the church is trying to reach, it's not uncommon for someone to attend a few weeks, then never be seen again, Lowe said.

"We're very specific on our target," he said. "We want to reach non-saved people here."

And he has heard criticism from some Christians offended by the message on the church's poster .

None of it, though, has discouraged him from his vision.

"I really do see this whole room here filled with people worshipping God," said Lowe, standing in the Truesdell school auditorium.

The Rest of The Story here

Mosaic Miami Church Website
Mosaic Miami Church Blog

Remember To Give It To GOD

Whenever people attack you unfairly, remember not to retaliate in the same way. Give it to GOD. People who attack you unfairly are only destroying themselves. If you attack, you are destroying yourself as well.

Pray to GOD and leave it in his hands and He will deal with it. Do not let it get to you. Ask for GOD to guide you forward and help you to ignore those who attack you. He will help you get through it.

Mosaic Miami Church Website
Mosaic Miami Church Blog

Downwardly Mobile and Upwardly Christian

Austin's 'emergent' Christians finding a new path

Groups slipping away from traditional churches to express their faith in other ways.
By Eileen E. Flynn Photography by Laura Skelding
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 12, 2007

Gideon and Karen Tsang prayed for a year before deciding to sell their spacious North Austin home and move into a modest 800-square-foot house in an East Austin neighborhood.

The couple and their two boys, ages 7 and 3, left higher-rated schools and a lower crime rate. They had to sell nearly all of their furniture because it wouldn't fit into the new house.

But they were pretty sure this is what Jesus wanted them to do.

"We feel the path of Christ is not in upward mobility; it's in downward," Gideon Tsang said.

The son of a Chinese missionary, Tsang, 33, grew up in Canada, attended an evangelical seminary in Illinois and eventually landed at Austin Chinese Church — a North Austin congregation made up mostly of immigrants from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan — where he led a ministry for college students called Liquid. That grew into Vox Veniae, which formed last year with a core of middle-class students and young professionals who, like Tsang, longed "to be the hands and feet of Christ in Austin."

Vox members have now bought or are renting six homes in the predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood, driven by a desire to share their resources by living among people who have less. Vox members hope to set up computer training classes, teach kids to build bikes and work as mentors in nearby public schools.

"It's all grace," Tsang said. "What we receive, we now have to give back."

The Tsangs and their friends are among thousands of young Christians around the country and abroad who are re-examining what it means to follow Jesus and changing not only how they worship, but also how they live.

They say they are paring down the Gospel message to what they see as essential and challenging the definition of church. Following Christ, they say, is not about building bricks-and-mortar sanctuaries but seeing the world outside church walls as God's sanctuary.

"It's not that the church meeting on Sunday isn't sacred," said Evan Wilson, a 20-year-old Vox Veniae member, "but that everything we do is sacred."

The Rest of The Story in print here

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