As the summer flies by we are moving forward into new opportunities at Mosaic . The summer has given us so many new families who have come to visit Mosaic. We are meeting so many different people. We have served at two car care Saturdays so far this season and both have provided the context to deepen relationships and deepen our presence in the community.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity to move forward has been with the building at our new location. We finally recieved the building permit to begin renovation on our new building. We will be working in July and hope to move in August. We are very excited about the potential for ministry at our new location.

Another new opportunity is in the area of drug and alcohol recovery. We have been introduced to an international recovery ministry that has proven successful all over the world. We are inviting community leaders, churches, and non-profits to attend a meeting on Wednesday, August 8th at 1:30pm. If you are interested in attending this informational meeting, please email me with your rsvp.

Please continue to pray for us as we move in new directions.

The winter has faded and springtime is blooming all around us. As the weather gets warmer, more people are out walking around, and our opportunities to care about people greatly increases. We have seen slow growth over the last few months and God has brought us some wonderful people. Our membership process has been solidied and we have members for the first time since we launched in February of 2006.

We are exciting about our move to the Hardy Building. We are in the process of getting building permits and other things that are slow and require patience. Our opportunities to minister will mulitiply as we move into our new building. We will have access 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We hope to move this April. Car Care begins in April as well. We will begin our 2007 season on April 28th at the Teen Challenge parking lot on Linden Ave. Teen Challenge has graciously allowed us to use their property for another year.

The ministry of rescuing people is one of the most intense ministries. When a person is so bound up they cannot get out by themselves, it is necessary that some outside force joins them in saving their life. Just like a person who is drowning needs another person to help them, so does a person who is emotionally and spiritually drowning. They must want to be rescued, but someone needs to be there to help carry their load. But when someone truly comes out of the kingdom of darkness and lives an abundant life in the kingdom of light, there is an equally intense joy.

We feel blessed to be in the ministry to rescue, restore, and rebuild people and communities. God continues to enlarge our territory as we remain faithful to what He has already given us. We have prayed for a facility that would allow us to house our Freedom Ministries. Two weeks ago we were offered a perfect building at a perfect location, Praise God. We will spend the next six months getting the building ready to open.

Our Freedom ministries will consist of four major components: a place for people to experience emotional healing, a place for addiction recovery, a safe place for pastor's and wives who are experiencing marital crisis, and a training facility to help equip Christians to minister within their own church family.

We are very excited about the potential of the Freedom Center in the Five Points Community of east Knoxville.

I have really been slack in my commitment to blog at least once a week. So many things are happening that I rarely take the time to stop and blog it. I am going to do better. The last month has been an exciting journey and somewhat dangerous. The exciting part is the continued blessing and growth that is occuring at Mosaic. We reached 60 in attendance this month which is a record for us. God continues to draw new people and I cannot remember a single Sunday when we didn't have a first time visitor. It is not just the people that has made Mosaic such a phenomenal place to be, but it is the Spirit of the living God. Our worship times are saturated with God's presence. The openness and willingness of the people to allow the Holy Spirit to lead our worship creates an atmosphere of great expectation. Our prayer times have been powerful and we are seeing God miraculous answer our prayers.

The highlight for me is our Wednesday night prayer gatherings. They are my favorite times of the month. The cry of the people as they intercede for others, even other people they do not know is incredible. I feel blessed to be a part of it. If there is anything I have learned over these first eight months it is how desperately we need God to show up. The things and issues we are praying about can only be answered by God. There is no human that is wise enough, strong enough, or powerful enough to meet the needs of those who are crying out to God, or those we are interceding for. Spiritual warfare has become a daily part of our ministry.

The enemy is not impressed with growing churches, big budgets, or wonderful preaching as long as it is done in human strength with human methods. But if we begin to do things in the power of Almighty God, we are going to get his attention. If we begin to go into the kingdom of darkness, especially some of the darkest places, and begin to rescue captives by the power of the Holy Spirit, then lead those captives into the kingdom of light, you will find yourself in a battle, a spiritual battle. As long as we don't do anything that threatens the enemy we will not experience intense battles. But if we engage the enemies' children in a strategic attempt to make them God's children, the battle is on. The only answer is prayer and the Word of God. So we are completely desperate and reliant on God. He is our only hope. Of course, that is the way He wants us to be.

We thank you and praise you Lord Jesus, Master, that you are our only hope. Thank you for rescuing us in our time of need.

What a great month! We hosted our second mission team in partnership with Friendship Baptist Church. A group of 18 came from South Carolina and did some great ministry. We went door to door promoting our outdoor movie night. We were able to see many people as we scattered out into the community. We had 75 people come to the movie as we all sat in our lawn chairs or blankets under the stars. It was a great night. We plan on having one more movie night before it gets too cold.

The next day we woke up and boarded up a crack house that is next door to our offices. The house is owned by an elderly woman and she asked Mosaic if we could help her. We cleaned up the entire property by removing trees and shrubs, cleaned up a fence line, and mowed a very neglected yard. The area is now safer because of the hard work of so many people.

August 6th we baptized new believers for the first time. Three people made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ and were baptized at Grace Baptist Church, our partner church. It was a very exciting night.

Our car care ministry continues to be a blessing to the community. We have so many people who have automotive needs and it is such a blessing to serve them. We will have one more car care on October 28th before we break for the winter.

Another ministry that is growing and bearing fruit is our partnership with Vine Middle School. We are developing a three way partnership that includes an urban school, an urban church, and a suburban church. We believe this partnership could have a tremendous impact on the community.

In August we tied our highest attendance twice with 53 people and we had two people express a desire to join Mosaic, not counting the three that were baptized. We have finalized our membership process and I believe it will be a very important piece to the Mosaic process of leading people to a transformed life in Jesus Christ.

I want to thank one of our ministry partners, Teen Challenge, who has provided us with free office space. It is such a blessing to be in the community we are serving every day. God has been faithful. He has supplied every need in His timing. I believe it is because the Mosaic family is committed to prayer. Our prayer gatherings have been so inspirational and deeply spiritual. God has heard our prayers and answered them. We are praying about where to continue meeting for our prayer times. We would love to stay at Vine Middle School but we may need to move to a new location. No matter where we move to, we must continue to pray. It has been the heart of Mosaic Church.

July was a pivotal month for Mosaic Church. Our leadership team has been wrestling with our membership process, and we feel good about where God has led us. We had our first luncheon and invited everyone who was interested, or simply curious about what it means to be a member at Mosaic. At the conclusion of our time together, over 20 people expressed interest in moving forward in the membership process. Praise God!

Our most exciting news is the number of people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We will be baptizing three people on August 6th at Grace Baptist Church. Once again we will be leading their Sunday night service at 6:00 and we will have the privilege of baptizing Emily, Adrain, and Karis.

The first weekend of August we will be hosting our second mission team this summer. This team is partnering with Mosaic and Friendship Baptist Church, one of our partner churches in Knoxville. They will help us with our first outdoor movie event in downtown east Knoxville. We want to provide a family safe activity as we introduce the community to Mosaic Church. We will also be doing door to door ministries and hopefully some renovations on a few homes.

Lastly, I want to thank God and Teen Challenge for giving us office space at no cost. We are now in the inner city every day with opportunities to serve and minister in a much more effective way. God has proved His faithfulness to us once again.

Many times we have a preconceived idea of how things are going to be and God shows you very quickly that He has another plan. Our ladies from Barbados have returned home. After four weeks of staying in Knoxville we realize that God had different plans for these two ladies than we anticipated. One of the ladies became ill and we had to take her to the hospital on three separate occasions. The doctors were unable to find anything significantly wrong. After the third trip to the hospital I became suspicious that her problems may not be physical but spiritual. Over the next week Kristi and I were able to have some in depth conversations, and I ended up taking her through a shortened version of the steps to freedom. I believe wwe experienced some significant spiritual breakthroughs. Both of them were able to sing with the Grace Baptist Church choir's latest cd recording. They also served at Knox Area Rescue Ministries and Teen Challenge as well as Mosaic Church.

Four great blessings were given to Mosaic this month. While we have seen people come to Christ for salvation out in the community, the first person to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior at Mosaic happened this month. It was a young man named Adrain and we are excited about discipling him and preparing him for baptism. He is a very special young man to me and he is becoming a real part of our family.

The second great gift came from the Tennessee Baptist Convention. After spending a day with us in Knoxville, they asked us what they could do for us. I mentioned that we would love to go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York to observe their ministry. Within in a couple of days they had worked up a budget for us and gave us the gift to attend the Pastors and Leaders Conference at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. So Claude and I, along with our wives, traveled to New York and attended the conference in Brooklyn. It was an inspiration and encouragement to all of us. What a blessing from God and we praise Him for His abundant provisions. We also want to thank the TBC for their generous support.

The third great blessing was also from the TBC this month. They extended our monthly financial support through October 2006. We receive $2,000 a month from the state convention inTennessee.

The fourth great blessing was the awesome presence of God at our first prayer gathering. We had 11 people show up and it was truly a time to cry out to God for the souls in our community and church. It was a great way to end a great month of God's infinite blessings. Our next prayer gathering will be on July 12th at Vine Middle School at 7:00pm. If you can attend you will not want to miss what God does.

I want to thank Almighty God for who He is and calling us to serve Him in the city of Knoxville. We praise Him for using us to show His love to so many who struggle to believe God really loves them. We thank you Father for your Son who gives us abundant life and sets us free. We also thank you for your Spirit who empowers us to speak boldly the truth that delivers us from darkness into the light. Jesus alone is the answer.