Tyler & Stephen-Follow Up Meeting
Our follow-up meeting to the initial patio meeting, where I broached the subject of Crossroads and Mosaic doing something together long-term, was Thursday morning, December 5th, downtown in the dream city. We were literally a block away from our first conversation. Still, instead of being on the patio, we were inside because of the temperature change ushering us into the Christmas Advent season.
The two options before us are, “Does Crossroads and Mosaic merge into one another and sunset one church, or do we consider the option of sunsetting both churches and replanting a new church in place of the original two?” Stephen wanted to know all the things I learned about church replanting. I have spent three years in a doctoral program at Talbot School of Theology, and my dissertation project is focused on three churches that replanted themselves as brand new churches.
Mark Hallock, a Baptist Pastor in Colorado, summarizes church replanting in his book Replanting Roadmap as “a church replants itself to combine new people with the existing people, putting new ministry structures in place that build upon the existing church’s history.” For two churches considering this, it potentially leads to a new replanted church, restarting from a place of strength and openness with two groups of people and histories instead of one.
It could work, but it obviously takes God to shepherd and guide the process. Along the way, my research discovered seven renewal characteristics the churches I studied had experienced. A church merge also had possibilities. The heart of either pathway is: Can Crossroads and Mosaic be “better together?” Only God knows the answer.
The conversation, as usual, went longer than we originally budgeted time for because Stephen and I like spending time together. Our time together for the past year had been fruitful, and this new conversation was shaping up to be similar. During our time together, Stephen and I saw another local Pastor from an Arlington church who co-pastors a church with another pastor. My thought was, I don’t know where this is headed, but there are no coincidences in the kingdom.—Tyler Arp
I had spoken to our elders about Tyler’s proposal to consider either merging our churches (and having one church continue in name, leading the way, while the other church would finish it’s “race”) or the possibility of replanting a new church altogether (and thus having both churches finish their races). Coming into our time at Inclusion I am not sure we, as a Mosaic team, had any solid answers on where God was taking us.
In some ways, there was intrigue at starting something completely new. The journey we had been on for almost 20 years was an amazing one, but over the last few seasons we had seen some immense struggles and deep places of pain. I could see how a new and fresh start could bring a fresh wind of God’s Spirit and vision.
But then, I also knew there was a great love for the Mosaic Family around our city. We had worked hard over those twenty years to love our city well, as Jesus taught us. To consider laying that down was something I couldn’t wrap my head around then.
Then there was the continued nagging question of “who is going to pastor this church?” And then the million $ question (or in our case as small church pastors…the $60k question LOL) how will I support my family IF I am not the one pastoring Mosaic/the new church? Those two questions plus a host of other questions regarding how similar are Crossroads and Mosaic really, kept swirling through my head as Tyler and I spoke.
We met for about an hour or so, if I remember correctly. We discussed our hearts, long term, about our city. Do we see ourselves planted here for the long haul? (My kids had all graduated High School locally, and in some ways I felt I was freed up to move on SHOULD the LORD direct me elsewhere. Whereas Tyler has kids just now making friends that should they be uprooted may cause them unnecessary pain.) We briefly touched on paid staff (We have ZERO besides myself, which I was quickly realizing has been our saving grace in more ways than one).
And then we focused in on Tyler’s doctoral studies in church revitalization. How was God teaching him through those studies things that could be transferred to our current situation. I remember I enjoyed learning from Tyler these things the most that day. I am intrigued by how God loves to take broken things and turn them into beautiful things, thus our name “Mosaic” for our current church. He loves to redeem. And as Tyler shared, I couldn’t help but think if the Spirit of the living God would desire to do something similar for the weary saints of Mosaic and Crossroads. I guess the Holy God and ‘father time’ would eventually tell.
(During this process I was determined to start a hard copy journal. And during every and any session that had anything to do with the potential new “whatever” I was going to write anything down that could be from the Spirit or just something I may need to look back over down the road.)
As we sat there, the room became more crowded with people. People I imagine who had zero idea that God was doing something at that small table between two small churches led by two small church pastors none of them in that room had ever heard of. But I couldn’t help but pray as I left that meeting, “LORD, if you are doing this, may you grow our hearts, minds, and maybe one day even our meeting room, just like I saw you fill that coffee house over the last hour.” —Stephen Hammond
