One of the most curious things I have experienced about the church in the United States is the reaction that becoming a truly missional community has on most churches and perhaps especially vanguard theologians. One of the surest ways of becoming suspect to mainline evangelicalism is to actually reorient the church around the mission of Christ.

The first core value of the Mosaic Alliance is “Mission is why the Church exists.” When you throw into the mix that we are focusing on reaching those who are farthest from the gospel (and therefore from Christian culture) then things start getting really interesting.

The challenge of course is that we far too often confuse approach with orthodoxy. It only feels biblical if we do it the way we have all ways done it. We create our own rituals that confirm our orthodoxy and that becomes the measure by which we judge everyone else’s work.

For some reason it is easier for us to be more open when it is a missionary in a far away country. When our friends from Mississippi move to an unnamed city in the Middle East or in Asia we get it. They have to learn a new language, they begin to dress differently, and they begin to learn the culture.

They also begin to look for connecting points between the religion and beliefs of their people group and the truth of the Scripture. They start with where the people are and slowly begin to build trust and confidence so that those they are burdened for might become open to the Scriptures and the gospel and ultimately to Jesus.

Some places and peoples are so open that mass crusades draw thousands. Other places require a different approach – a far more specialized approach. The difference is like that of a general practitioner and a surgeon. Our tension is often influenced by the great results we see among wonderfully open people. We begin to assume this is the approach that God affirms for every place and situation and everyone must adhere to this same process. But you don’t use the same approach to treat the flu and to treat cancer. Nor do you get the same results. In fact the one that is more critical and more urgent is also the one with the most unknown and the least success. In the end the one who failed may be the one who endeavored to accomplish the most noble of tasks.

What is happening across the world and here at home is that there is an army of cross cultural missionaries who have become the new leaders of the church. Their calling isn’t to pastor churches that focus on the happiness of its members, but to mobilize the church for the purpose of fulfilling God’s mission of reconciling the world to Him. We used to send our missionaries out and it kept the mission a safe distance from us. Some how they broke back in and decided they were not going without us.

At Mosaic we don’t have members, only missionaries. There is nothing to join except a community on mission. We have little patience for self indulgent spirituality that insists on everything being about us.

We have a zero tolerance policy for religious jargon or christianese. We have little room for traditions that mean something to us but nothing to a person searching for God. We will not forsake the word of God for the traditions of men. We are committed to removing every non-essential barrier between God and humanity. We refuse to allow the gospel to become lost in our nostalgia or to appear irrelevant because we are.

And I must confess we are less concerned about whether mainstream Christians get us than about whether those searching for God get Him. If he was willing to take on hell for eternity, we can take a little heat from the watch dogs of Christian orthodoxy.

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.

It would seem a value like “Love is the Context for All Mission” would be pretty innocuous. Over the years I have found the opposite to be true. After “Mission is Why the Church Exists” comes a core value that affects everything related to the execution of our mission. This value demands that everything Mosaic does carry the motivation, authentification, and declaration of love.

This is the emerging angle – everything we do must always be in the context of love. Doesn’t sound that controversial … until you put it into practice.

Then the rubber hits the road and there are a lot of tread marks.

Eric Bryant who serves as an elder and is the operational leader of Mosaic has recently released a book entitled “Peppermint Filled Piñatas.” Its subject is far more serious than its title-though the book itself is hilarious at times.

Though he is wonderfully lacking in self righteousness, he confronts our intolerance exposing all the people Christians love to hate.

I hate the word tolerance and so does Eric. He advocates a radically unorthodox position – let’s move beyond tolerance and move to love.

Emerging churches are often seen as suspect because there are so many openly sinful people attending.

What is often called the great compromise is actually the great commission at work.

Jesus is used as the basis of condemnation – that the gospel is being compromised – yet it was about Jesus that John states, “He did not come to condemn the world but to bring life.”

To read Jesus is to see one who was intolerant of empty religion and self-righteous hypocrisy and treated with tenderness the sinful and broken. The modern church has been far too tolerant of sin, hypocrisy and corruption among its leaders while proclaiming judgment on the masses.

Jesus’ reputation was ruined because he was accused of being a friend of sinners. It was true.

I hope my name is deserving of a similar smear campaign for the same reason as the one and one alone whose opinion of us really matters. Because in the end when it is all said and done they will know us by our love; and as Paul concluded all that matters is faith as it is expressed through love.

So while mission is why the church exists, love must always be the context for all mission.