Tuesday, February 28, 2006

What a night at Grace Baptist Church! Sunday night, February 26th, God allowed us the opportunity to share our vision and story at Grace Baptist Church, our primary partner. We were able to dedicate our first baby born in the Mosaic family, little Emmitt. Claude did a wonderful job sharing his heart about his journey from Grace to New Orleans and now back to Knoxville. Stanley was awesome as he shared about the Amachi program. There were 20 people from Grace who signed up to be an Amachi mentor. Many others signed up for car care, housing, and women's crisis ministries.

Diahn and the praise band were totally anointed by God. When Diahn began singing her solo, there was a hush over the entire place. God was moving in the hearts of people and touching that deep place inside of them that awakens their heart. When Donald started playing that baby grand piano, tears began welling up in people's eyes. It was a blessed night, ordained by God.

We are thankful for the opportunity to lift up Jesus Christ; the rescuer, restorer, reconciler, and rebuilder of our souls. We simply wanted to communicate what we believe Jesus is doing in the inner city and offer them an invitation to join it. Many did and many will as the word continues to ripple through their church family. We were given a nice computer, which I have been praying about, and someone has a house they want us to use for ministry purposes. Praise God.

We will be meeting with the city director of community development and the county director in the next two weeks. Please pray that God would give us unbelievable favor in those meetings. It will be very important to the direction God moves us, especially in the area of housing.

We are finalizing our plans as we ask the question, what does it mean to be a member of Mosaic? We do not want our membership to look like what the traditional model has historically looked like. We are also beginning to develop our strategy for launching our car care ministry, housing ministry, women in crisis ministry and our Amachi Mentoring ministry.

It is so exciting to join God in what He is doing. Thank you Lord Jesus for allowing us the privilege to walk with you.

Todd

Friday, February 17, 2006

It has been an incredible week. God has gone before us in so many ways. I can see how relationships I have been in for years were really divine appointments. God has placed and is placing key people in the Mosaic circle of influence. While meeting at Mayor Ragsdale office with one of our partner churches, I bumped into Mayor Ragsdale. He sat down and talked with me for approximately 20 minutes. He was very interested in what we are doing in the city. Three days later I received a personal letter from the mayor letting Mosaic know he is available to help in anyway he can.

This encounter is truly God's timing because we are beginning to move out and implement our servant evangelism outreach ministries. We are praying and seeking God about five doors that seem to be opening for us right now. The first is a car care ministry. We are going to begin providing free oil changes, minor repairs, and honest assessments to low income families. We plan to begin in March. We are looking for a sponsor or business to provide the funding we need to reduce the cost to Mosaic. There will be many facets to car care Saturday that will provide a variety of ministry opportunities to the residents of the community. One of them will be a ministry called Angel Food. They provide a quality box of food at a low cost. We can take orders and provide the people with the box of food that they pay for.

Another important ministry that is crucial to life is housing. We have people who have come alongside us to make our dream of affordable housing a reality. We looked at eight houses this week and discovered that there are numerous houses or buildings for sale. Many of them need some repair and we have a contractor, partner churches and the city who are willing to be involved in providing affordable transitional and/or permanent housing for low income families.

We also want to get deeply involved with Knox Area Rescue Ministries and some of their friendship evangelism ministries.

Lastly, we hope God will allow us to become an Amachi church. Amachi is a mentoring program facilitated by the Knoxville Leadership Foundation. It places mentors with children who have at least one parent in prison.

One more big opportunity happens Sunday, February 26th at Grace Baptist Church. They are our primary partner church and they have asked us to share our entire vision with them in their evening service at 6:00pm. We are excited about the opportunity to share our message of hope to as many people as possible. Jesus really does bring hope. I hope if you are in the area you will come and be a part of this special service.

Jesus wants to transform your heart, heal every wound, and provide freedom and liberty that brings peace. God bless you. Todd

Monday, February 06, 2006

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW. We had a wonderful day at our launch service. We had four different cultures represented, that we are aware of: Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White. We discussed what it means to be a multi-ethnic congregation. The leader of our denomination, Dr. Walter Taylor, came and blessed us as he prayed over us and encouraged us. We had 50 people in attendance and ten people expressed an interest in joining Mosaic Community church.

Now that we have established the church and have gained some stability in our Sunday morning worship services, we will begin to focus on our outreach to the community. One of the first outreach ministries God has called us to is an automotive ministry for low income families. We are praying about and planning for the new ministry to begin this Spring in March or April. We will also begin some women's ministries as we partner with existing ministries in the city.

I am encouraged about the days ahead. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and support. God bless. Todd