by Erwin McManus

I was on line the other day and up popped a website that went into detail about how I am a heretic and Mosaic is a danger to the Christian faith. Honestly in the past this would have brought me great pain but this time I could only laugh. What else can you do when your most violent attacks come from those who are supposed to be on the same team?

Recently it has been discovered that Pat Tillman, the former pro football player who went to Iraq to fight for freedom, was perhaps killed by friendly fire. This is tragedy poured upon tragedy. He was a hero and a person of great honor. His death was in pursuit of a cause he believed in. Yet all of us know that this is not how you’re supposed to die at war.

Why is it then that we who are supposed to be known as His disciples by our love for one another keep shooting our own? And it’s a stretch to call it friendly fire. I took on this project to write “the emerging angle” to try to stop the internal bleeding we are inflicting on each other. Is it possible that the greatest enemy to what God is doing in the world is the church? The established church is supposed to be the womb of the emerging church. Emerging is not a noun it is a verb. It is not a kind of church but the promise that the church will always prevail.

By the way many, of the emerging leaders have been around for decades. They have already emerged. It just seems to take us a long time to recognize when God is doing a new thing. We should not confuse being popular with being effective. Leaders and churches are effective long before they are popular. In fact, it is easier to be popular when you do it the “right”(the way we’ve always done it before)way. Acceptance by the mainstream takes time and perseverance if you are paving a new path.

Mosaic isn’t a new church, she is over sixty years old and I have been here in Los Angeles for over 15 years. The truth of the matter is that what we are pretending is emerging is actually already the effective present. Churches we call contemporary are really quite established. Saddleback is over thirty years old. Willowcreek is over forty years old. These are not new churches. The bulk of their constituency would be in their fifties. We have a pattern of only embracing the new once it is old.

So before we dive into all things controversial let me share with you Mosaic’s five core convictions:

1) The Scriptures are God’s authoritative word to us.
2) Jesus is the only way through which we come to God.
3) The local church is God’s agent for redemptive change.
4) Every believer is called and gifted to serve the body and seek the lost.
5) Our call is to all the world.

Pretty straight forward don’t you think?

So where does the rub come?

See you next month.