Foolswork College Station Launches thie week

I got great news from Daniel Rappe that foolswork College Station was planning on their first gathering to be in the next week. Actual date and location are still in question but they are committed and have assembled a great launch team! Go Guys!!!!!

If you want to know more about foolswork at Texas A&M email Daniel at daniel@foolswork.org There is a website comming as soon as we have a few more details and that will be located at tamu.foolswork.org.

Houston Mosaic's Top Ten List proposal....

I'm still working on the wordsmithing but feel free to comment and add you notes.....

10. Conteplation - We need to seek our place of rest and rejuvenation in our hectic whirlwind lives we lead. This place is different for each one of us and we value this practice.

9. Art - We believe that Art touches out souls and if we are to gather as a community to worship we need the arts to be a light post along the path. Art open us to ideas and concepts that without which are unobtainable. Art is welcome in the community of Mosaic.

8. Music - If the really smart physicist are right, and they seem to make sense, there exist a relationship between the vibrations of the universe and the very existence of us. We choose to believe these vibrations can be interpreted as music and if we are to connect with our world and the creator of that world we need to express it through music. Besides David used music to comfort the ailments of King Saul.

7. Communion - We strive to be in communion with each other and as worship and celebration of the unique relationship we are involved in with the Creator through His Son’s sacrifice.
6. Hope - We gather and do together because we have hope. Hope is a thing that few people can grasp and even fewer understand fully. We live in the hope that God is who He says He is and we are not Him!

5. Love - What would happen if we truly loved others simply because. What if we were intentional in our communication, both verbal and non-verbal, in such a manner that others stopped us on the street to ask us what was different about us?

4. Faith - We desire to show other what we believe though our actions words and deeds. This is not an exercise but a lifestyle.

3. Houston - We feel this is our city and our place where we needed

2. Family - All of the people that we consider to be family in our lives. You might want to be forewarned we kinda adopt a Hispanic/Latino approach to family.... Once your in it is almost impossible to get out. (Maybe we got that from the Godfather movies :)

1. Relationships between each other and our Creator

The First Sunday

Let me say one thing I am as rejuvenated as I am exhausted!!!!!!

We had a great morning at the Alief YMCA. Rickie Bradshaw shared his heart on his mission and dream for the Alief area - December cried. I would have cried but I did my crying on Friday we Rickie and I spoke on the phone....

There were fourteen people willing to take a risk and get something started!!!!!! Including a very little one that was precious and was very funny. She would mimic my hand movements as I was talking.

Thank you to all who came and will hopefull make this a home for us and the friends that we have yet to meet. So what do you say - same time next week - same bat channel?

The dream for Mosaic Houston

Weekly Gatherings: Mosaic Houston

Arrive and you are guided to a parking space at a community building. There are tents and what appears to be vendors set up all over the place. Kids are bouncing on moonwalks and music is playing from a DJ. As you approach the festival you discover the tents are opportunities for you become more involved in your community, mission opportunities, and much more. As the service draws near, the activity in the main gathering room becomes apparent on screens and on the sound system. A comedy troupe (or magician, or musician, or video or or or... insert your imagination here) is onstage cutting up with the gathering audience. The tents begin to close up and you move into the gathering space and find the light mood of people talking and laughing and gathering as a community. As the comedians draw their time to an end the worship team starts the service in song and a whirlwind of music, drama, spoken word, prayer and more engage you and suddenly someone invites you to kneel with them and deal with the thing God has raised up in your heart. The music is back and you go back out to the world to be salt and light - recharged and rejuvenated.

Chris driving a mini van

Chris at Big Reds on Oklahoma. Driving his favorite off road mini-van!

A Foolswork Update for Late May

Last week I was invited to Dallas to attend a gathering at The Leadership Network on Church Planting.  I had no clue what to expect and I was simply blown away!!!!!

The big wow for the week, I now understand exactly what Foolswork is and have the vocabulary to describe it to others. 

Foolswork is an Apostolic  Multi-site Organic Church that primarily gathers in first and third places.  Our philosophy is a Missional church with the emphasis being on our community first.  Community is defined as our members/ attenders, our neighbors and their neighbors.  We have a desire to have an impact on those in our community and our neighbors through our community activism.  Our mission field is near and far and our desire is to connect with a specific people group in a far away place where we can return for years of continued shared learning.  we are not teachers we are life long learners and we choose to follow a carpenter named Jesus.  We are apostolic by design.  

Let's unpack these words:  Multi-site states that we have communities in different states and ultimately different countries.  Organic church is an idea of a small gathering that grows and lives and divides into other gatherings and moves without the structure of an Attraction Model church.  (Build a building and gather people to the building.) 

Missional Church is one that sees our neighborhood as a mission fiend.  Most Attraction Model churched are program or ministry based in their approach.  In other words we are not seeking to find believers and move them to our gathering we are actually seeking to find the un-churched and gather them into a meaningful community.  

Community defines three people groups in Foolswork: 1) The people that gather regularly, 2) The community in which we reside, and 3) The people outside our neighborhood to the ends of the world.  Wherever we start a mission our goal is to be there for an extended amount of time. 

We follow Jesus of Nazareth.  I am sure someone will come up with a reason to extend this statement however, we like it simple.  we choose to be seen as foolish to the world and wise to God's Kingdom.  (John 7:47, 1 Cor 4:10, 2 Samuel 6:11-21)

Apostolic is the idea that there is an order and system for Foolswork.  For example Morgan and Drew are launching groups this fall and they have both been directly trained and taught by us.  We know them.  Morgan and Drew will encourage leaders that do not know us to take the online training and launch their own groups in new places.  This is an Apostolic Model.  

We gather in first and third places.  A first place is where you live and a second place is where you work and a third place is in north america Starbucks.  The first College Station gathering is planning on a Laundry-mat.  The Katy gathering was originally in homes but moved out to restaurants and coffee shops.  

We will be utilizing a centralized training systems called Foolswork Universiy™.  This program is available in two methods: 1) in a mentorship relationship with a qualified trainer or 2) via the web.  All of our training will be available on the web.  Courses being developed include:  

- How to start a group.

- How to gather people.

- Where to meet and why?

- Planning and ideas for community events, Social Justice, and community involvement projects.

- Start a Cluster (aka Take the 30 day challenge)

- How to make the 30 Day Journal.

- Overview of THE365STUDY.

- VCL Training.

- Foolswork The Basics

- Multi-Ethnic Theology 

Foolswork is unique in that we have weekly content available to all groups in many forms.  The leaders of the group can login in to the website and attend a weekly Foolswork University course that will walk them through that weeks lesson and the research behind the content.  This training is in two sections: one for the teacher and one for the music leader.  They can also watch the weekly lesson on the site taught by one of our gatherings.  If they choose to use the video of the gathering instead of teaching the lesson live they have the ability to download a DVD version with high quality video.  Also available for download are the charts for the weekly music, the teachers notes, powerpoint, and handouts for the week and more.  

The complete weekly gathering is available online.  We anticipate that there are three potential viewers of the weekly gathering: 1) the teachers looking to learn, 2) the members of a gathering that missed the meeting and 3) internet only members of Foolswork.  

The new website is in early Alpha development and will hopefully be in Beta in the next few weeks.  Please review the site for all input once it is up and functional.  We also need a few dollars to get the ste programed once we have a working beta build.  

Attached is a picture of the Alpha Foolswork home page....

Icons for the new web site

So I am looking for four new icons that we can use on the new website to communicate our method of reaching others intentionally (Foolswork Clusters) - How we join in community (Foolwsork groups) - and  our movement (Mosaic Church.)  

We start with an image of the individual - You.  

Then we ask those individuals aka friends and their friends to join us on a 30 day experiment in community and spiritual journey.  This group gathers for up between 8 and 20 times in the span of 30 days.  There is a set reading material that all re

ad prior to gathering.  The gathering take place literally wherever the cluster wants to meet.  They have five things to accomplish in the 30 days: Read and talk about the readings, get a meal together, join a Foolswork Group in a community event (outreach,) Spend time making the booklets for the next group, Learn about the 365 Study.

Notice how the members of the Foolswork Group have their arms touching each other.  This is where real community begins.  The Clusters really don't get connected enough in 30 days to start a community.  This is where we do life together and life and laugh and worship in a home or coffee shop or in a Laundry Mat. 

 There is leadership and music and teams and very important community impact is not an event but a regular lifestyle.  

Now we see the idea of a large community forming of all people and groups.  This is when we have a weekly gathering in a central place.  The idea of the icon os that we are the same but different.  Regardless of our background we are connected.  This is Mosaic!  We are Mosaic.  We represent the rainbow of colors and that God has created in his people.