An Interview with Eric Bryant, Navigator, Mosaic Los Angeles
(Interviewed by Steve Saccone, Mosaic Alliance Catalyst)

What is your role at Mosaic?

I’m a Navigator, which is part of the team that serves our lead team, paid staff, and volunteer ministry leaders. Basically, I help make sure we carry out Mosaic’s vision and to move our community forward to reach our city and serve people who don’t know Christ.

How does the decision-making process work at Mosaic with Erwin as the Lead Pastor, the functioning of the Elders, and you as a Navigator?

In some ways, I serve as in an executive pastor role, and when Erwin is travelling, I work with others to make sure things get done that need to get done. Decisions are made based on core values. We try to push authority to the places we have given responsibility. For example, Eileen Lu is given responsibility and authority to make decisions within Kids Mosaic. The Elders or Navigators don’t make decisions on how she spends her money or how she carries out her ministry goals. We give her that responsibility so we also give her that authority. We give a lot of freedom so long as it aligns with our vision and resonates with our core values.

Everything we do is highly relational. Everyone Mosaic hires first serves as a volunteer at Mosaic, so when we hire someone, we hire people who have our core values within their ‘DNA.’ As long as our team is making decisions that help us reach people, serve people, help people grow within their ministry areas, our job as leaders is then to empower them to do these things. If someone makes a decision that I think may slow us down or move us sideways from accomplishing our vision, that’s when I have a conversation to find out more as to why they made that decision. And I also want to be in a place where people feel the freedom to have conversations before they make big decisions. So when they’re in doubt I want to be a part of that process, especially when their decision has implications of other people and ministries at Mosaic.

How do financial decisions get made within Mosaic?
As far as finances and decisions go, we have a finance team that works with each ministry area to create a budget that is approved by the elders. Each ministry area submits a budget proposal for the year that is aligned with their calendared events, and then the finance team makes the final decision on budget allotments (approval by Elders). Our paid staff and volunteer staff then use that budget to accomplish their goals in their ministry.

Is there one of your core values that drives Mosaic when it comes to budget and spending?

All are important and critical, but we do have them in an order that makes sense to us. Mission is why the church exists is our first core value. Many times because we are Christians and we love Jesus, if we are not careful we can end up hanging out with just each other. In terms of budgeting, we have to make sure we are spending our money serving and reaching people, ensuring that Christ’s mission is at the forefront, otherwise we end up just spending our money on each other. Really what people are giving towards is the cause of Christ, the mission that Jesus has sent us all to change this city – and that’s how we want to spend our money. ‘Love is the context for our mission’ is our second core value, so we try and empower people to reach those they already know, their family friends and co-workers. For Mosaic, reaching people is best done in the context of loving community - they try to serve their friends with their friends and reach their friends with their friends.

How does Mosaic empower, equip and envision people to reach their friends?

We are very intentional about creating an ethos (or environment) where evangelism is paramount. Part of how we do this is by keeping the mission as our focus. Erwin and our leaders will share on Sundays about the core values or give examples of mission is why the church exists – we weave this value into our culture through stories, language, and other ways. Part of how we empower, equip, and envision people comes through our volunteer staff process (more what this involves later). Everyone who joins Mosaic as a volunteer staff learns about our 5 core values and how they apply to them individually. Part of our process also reminds them how this applies to Mosaic corporately. When they are commissioned we again remind them of the commitments they’ve made to live an evangelistic life and to serve others. We commission them as missionaries to Los Angeles, just as we commission people over seas. These are some of the more programmatic ways we get the word out but really this all has to do with relationships, or ethos/positive peer pressure. The longer you are at Mosaic the more you want to share with your friends that don’t know God and serve them. We constantly encourage people to serve and pray for those family members, friends and co-workers that don’t know God. Sharing with them becomes a natural by-product of being concerned about where they are in life and really not just where they going when they die. Jesus helps me live my life everyday, and we continually remind each other the importance of serving our neighors. It has everything to do with relationships. Every time a leader shares about how they are reaching out and serving, it just reminds us of what’s important.

How do you keep the mission before the lead team and the high level volunteers and ministry leaders?

Part of it is asking questions, ‘how are you guys doing in connecting to those who are not connected?’ If we stop asking those questions, not only does that mean we have stopped thinking about the mission but more than likely they have stopped thinking about the mission. We have to keep each other accountable to keep that at the forefront, so when we get together for meetings or ministry updates we are always sharing about people that don’t know God or people that are disconnected how they are getting connected. So even though we are not saying, ‘ok now share with us somebody that doesn’t know Christ that you have been talking to’ that ends up being what we talk about. At the same time we are very intentional about making sure that our paid staff and ministry leaders are raising up new leaders who are mission-focused. This means seeing people that don’t know God choose to follow Christ join our volunteer staff and at the same team moving them to a level of effectiveness and capability to lead and serve and continue to develop other leaders who are becoming missional as well.

So what does it mean to be on volunteer staff at Mosaic?
We used to have members at Mosaic but that didn’t sound exactly right, then we tried partners and that was even worse! Then we realized that what we are asking people to do, to join us in this mission with their heart, their soul, mind and body, that really we are asking them to join our staff. Rather than being paid by our tithes and offerings they are working secular jobs, much like the apostle Paul did when he was a tent maker. So rather than raising money from the church, they are raising money from the secular world - that just happens to be where their mission field is as well. So we ask people who want to join our staff to go through a 6 session study of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Second, they go specifically to a seminar called ‘Life in Church,’ which unwraps the distinctives of Mosaic and who we are. It is at this event that we talk people out of joining staff, as we tell them that there is only one reason to join staff. We will serve and love anyone who comes, and being part of our community means showing up on Sundays. But if you want to join staff you are saying, ‘I am ready to sacrifice my needs in order to meet the needs of other people.’ As long as they are clear with our core values and they have agreed to our core covenant which is;
(1) To give their passions, serving in areas where God is calling them, (2) to live a godly, authentic life, not being perfect but making themselves accountable and coming clean when they need to come clean, (3) they give their service and resources which includes a minimum of tithing as well giving generously what they have to give, and (4) they give their relationships, that they are investing in people that do not know God.
If they make these commitments then we commission them as missionaries to Los Angeles, just as we commission missionaries to go all over the world.

How do get such a high level of volunteerism at Mosaic?
I think the volunteer staff process helps a great deal b/c we call people toward higher involvement - Erwin calls it a radical minimum standard. In Acts 6 they chose waiters but they needed to be filled with Spirit of God, so we ask so much of our volunteer staff that it just rubs off on others. When people come and see people who work 40-50hrs a week in a job and then give a further 10, 15, 20 hours a week as a volunteer - getting to the service 3 hours ahead of time and staying an hour after to clean up - it just rubs of on you. The longer you are here the more you want to be involved in that. Part of it is having such a high standard for our volunteers. At the same time we really believe that when you lose your life in serving other people that is when you find your life, which is what Jesus said. So when we recruit people to serve, they are not doing us a favor - they need to serve more than we need them to serve. We recognize the type of sacrifices people makee and we want them to see the type of sacrifices others are making – sacrifice for others is an embedded value of our culture. The other fact that we don’t hire anyone from outside our volunteer staff allows us to hire people who are already giving enormous amounts of time and energy (people notice this). In many ways we hire catalytic, hard-working people, and that trickles down into their ministry area. So many times when we talk about the number of hours worked a week, we are normally saying to our paid staff that they are working too many. We have to help people learn how to take days off - those are the kind of people we end up hiring rather than the type of people that we have to keep in front of them, ‘hey you’re not working enough.’ The biggest reason perhaps the fact that even if you are just setting up chairs on Sunday you realize you are maybe setting up a chair for someone who doesn’t know God and you realize that you are part of something so big and so important that even the most minute detail becomes important.

On any given Sunday you may have a Buddhist, a Muslim, an Atheist - what is the process of bringing a person from a different religion or no religion at all into a relationship with Jesus?

Again the process is very relational and fluid. The goal for us as leaders and staff is to have eyes to see people who are disconnected and if we see that someone has come by themselves, then they are not sitting by the next week. We have people ready to invite them out for coffee. Our ten-minute party helps too – it’s a place where we try and connect with guests right after our service. If they don’t come to the ten minute party and they are just wondering around in the hallway or foyer, our people are intentional about going up to people, building relationships, and many times a person that comes is not overlooked but instead invited out to pizza after the Mayan. There are so many people that are actively looking to connect with others. We invite people who don’t know God to serve, to join a small group, to go out to dinner or come to a party. We believe in the power of relationships. All of a sudden it’s in the context of that relationship that a person can start having their questions answered - really the greatest way we answer questions is by them seeing someone who has a life giving relationship with Christ. They’re asking questions and seeing it answered in the person they have befriended, so it is really key that we continue to work towards developing relationships with those that are disconnected. Those people who come to our church that are Muslim or Buddhist are usually invited by someone who does know God, so they already have that relationship. Usually that person is already investing in them and going to hang out with them. The first step is definitely getting them into a relationship with someone who knows Christ if that doesn’t exist, And then within the context of that relationship we try to get them involved with ministry or serving alongside more people who know God. Then it may be on a Sunday or in a small group, or even over lunch it may the person learns how to start this relationship with God. We also give away copies of the Scriptures, but really each person comes to God in a different way and there is not really a defined process. For us, it’s important to build environments people who don’t know God are compelled to come to. And by the way, we have had some people go through our volunteer staff process before who came into a relationship with Christ through that. It’s highly relational and highly intentional - we have a lot of sticky ministries and sticky people who are trying to help people in that journey.

Why do you think people from other religions drawn to Mosaic?
I had a conversation with 4 Hindu guys, a guy and a girl that where Buddhist, a Muslim girl and some angry Catholics who didn’t really go to church. I think it goes back to people inviting people, people befriending people, seeing themselves as missionaries in LA, etc. Our people are really good at connecting people to Mosaic, and part of that is that we as leaders at Mosaic have been very intentional about creating a place where people who do not know God feel safe and comfortable to explore who Jesus is. I don’t think people would invite their friends who don’t know God to Mosaic except that they know it is a place where they can explore, we deal with real life topics, even sensitive ones in a way that honors people and respect who they are. We connect to where people are coming from and yet at the same time acknowledging that our lives have been changed by Jesus Christ. Once you start coming to Mosaic you end up with so many different friends that you end up just continuing. I remember a 2 hour conversation with Paul, an agnostic a year ago. Now he is part of a college group meeting downtown, he meets with some Mosaic leaders regularly for breakfast or lunch. LA is a lonely place and we can create a place where people feel love and cared for and build friendships. They come and in the process of conversations we point them to God.

Learn More About the Mosaic Alliance at http://mosaicalliance.com/

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