30 Sep TGA presents Dinner & Dialogue
Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. -Acts 2:46
I’ve often wondered what it must have been like to be part of the first century church. These early Christians are surely some of the bravest, most inspiring people the world has ever known. They had their hearts fundamentally changed by an extraordinary truth, their changed hearts led to changed lives and those changed lives literally changed the world. While we’ll never fully know what it was like to be one of the first Christians, I have to believe in many ways it wasn’t all that unlike today. A mosaic of people from different traditions, cultures and belief systems being saved into a glorious new family of God where some of those distinctives remained, but where all things were conformed and transformed into the likeness of this Jesus they followed. What I love most of all is that in almost every scene of the New Testament it’s a people on mission together. As much as Paul was a trailblazer and often thought of as a maverick, Paul still had “his people”; and it wasn’t all the people he had grown up with. By in large, Paul’s “people” were different than him. They were raised in different cultures, different religions and in some cases, no religion at all. Paul, who was what the bible calls a Hebrew among Hebrews ended up traveling all over the extended middle east with a Greek physician and other Gentiles as they worked together to further the gospel message of Jesus. These people who were natural enemies had been saved into the same family by the same love.
Today we find ourselves in similar situations. We all have our cultural backgrounds, our community practices, our religious liturgies, our political perspectives, our speech patterns and accents, all the way down to our choices of clothing and food. More specifically, we find ourselves living in a melting-pot city where both our community of faith and the community we live in are marked by diversity. Trying to become a people of passion and purpose on mission together, while continually working to reconcile the differences between us is no small task but it’s the task our Mosaic has been called to. Whether you are a long-time Mosaic member and have been to every “The Gospel And…” meeting, or if you are new here and aren’t even sure what TGA is, I want to invite and encourage you to join us on October 13th for Dinner & Dialogue. We will be meeting in homes all over Austin to explore the distinctives of our backgrounds and the difficulties of understanding our different realities; all for the purpose of glorifying God, loving each other better and being an honest testimony to the world around us. We do this by living lives marked by the law of love.
Dinner & Dialogue will provide a safe but transparent environment to hear the stories behind the faces of people we worship with week in and week out. Come hear, learn, share, understand and be understood. Mosaic Church is a group of people who are here for Jesus and for each other. We believe this will be a meaningful and powerful opportunity to do both.
Space is limited, so register now! Yes, now… don’t mark this to come back to later. Click the registration link, get out your calendar, put in the reminder and prepare for an amazing time of love, honesty and eye-opening conversation!
Click here to register for Dinner & Dialogue.
See you there!
Nathan