goodbye, tower mosaic

some of you already know this, but tower mosaic is about to be done. tonight will be our last official event as we host art hop. last sunday was our final regular meeting.

as i look back over the last few years of my life, i'm glad to have been a part of tower from near its inception. honestly, it was a big step for heather and i to leave my home church, but we were really excited to get involved in a fellowship in our own neighborhood. i knew that church planting could be rough from watching my brother and sister inlaw do it down in pasadena, so i came into the experience with what i would consider realistic expectations.

so what happened with tower mosaic? where did we fail? well, i wouldn't say that we failed. and i'm not just trying to present a rosey picture. i think we met a need for the people we served over the last few years. i know tmc met a need in my life. and, i think we had an impact on local art & music communities through art hop, jazz jam, and the rogue festival.

but alas, it did come to an end. basically, it's hard work starting a new organization. we had built up a good momentum and were growing but i think there were some problems that we never addressed. part of it, at least in my opinion, is that we didn't grow a solid enough base in the tower community. we were spread apart about fresno, which hampered us creating community within ourselves, as well as engaging the tower community in it's fullest. another issue is that we were trying to move away from some of the established models for how church should look, act, do. it's difficult to make new ways, and that took a toll on us all, especially our leadership. as people began to become distant, we didn't do a good enough job to either keep them engaged or even really find out why they were moving on. and so it dwindled. momentum was lost. agendas seemed to change. i'm sure there is more to it, in fact i know there's more to it, but these are the things that stand out to me.

and so a little over a month ago our leadership team sat down to have an honest conversation about where it all stood. God had led us to start this endeavor, and it seemed that God was now leading us to shut it down and disperse us into other things. although it's difficult, it is a good thing. we're investing our people and assests into other ministries. and i hope those other ministries take on a bit of who we were.

our space (physical location) will continue on with one of our people. she's been leading a sunday morning study there and it has been rapidly growing. it excites me to already see a seed from the tmc tree growing. it also looks like she'll keep doing art hop & jazz jam, at least for now.

what's next for heather and i? we're not quite sure yet. it's summer, we'll see. what i think we do know is that we're probably not going to find a home in the old way of doing church. i hope we keep in contact with the people we've met during this season of our lives, even if it is just an occassional email or an accidental encounter.

it's been good.