ORIGINS

In 2003, Dr. George Yancey and I met for the first time over lunch at a conference in Indianapolis, IN. At the time, George was a sociology professor at the University of North Texas and was there to speak as well as to promote the soon to be released United By Faith: The Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race, one he co-authored with Dr. Michael O. Emerson, Curtiss Paul DeYoung, and Karen Chai Kim. As for me, I was attending with my fledgling staff of five people, having planted the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in the summer of 2001.

The conference had been organized and hosted by Dr. Charles Ware and the late Dr. Ken Hutcherson. These pioneering African American pastors had intentionally planted multiethnic churches in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively, and together with Leadership Network, convened what they described as a national gathering hoping to attract other leaders of like mind.

Approximately 250 people attended the event. That said, George and I observed that just over 100 of these came from Crossroads Bible College and its associated church, while another 100 attendees had traveled by bus from Dr. Hutchinson’s church, Antioch Bible Church, in Seattle, WA. Ultimately, we could identify only some 35 or so attendees including George, myself, and 4 others who had come with me, not otherwise associated with the two larger groups.

Reflecting on the situation, George remarked over lunch: “You know, I don’t think the idea of a multiracial church is widespread enough at this time to expect pastors from around the country to understand it or attend let alone pursue such a vision in their own local contexts. Movements always begin at the grass root level, not at a national one.”

That got me thinking.

Since George lived and worked in the DFW metroplex and I was in Little Rock, AR, only five hours away, I suggested we turn his observation into action and plan a local gathering of our own in Dallas, TX, the following year.

So, in November 2004, we did just that and were able to attract some 30 people to Pastor Dwight McKissic’s church, Cornerstone Baptist, for the Friday night, all day Saturday event... 30 or so people, that is, counting the church secretary, sound tech, the pizza deliveryman, and a dog that walked across the parking lot: Indeed, if you had a heartbeat and were on site that day, you were counted;-)

In approach to the gathering, we wondered what to call it. George liked the name Mosaic, one first conceived and applied to a local church by Erwin McManus. At the time, my own Mosaic was the 3^rd such church (following Erwin’s lead) to adopt and apply the name. Yet somehow, I recognized that whatever it was that George and I were sensing – a fledging Movement of God – would prove to be much bigger in time than any one church could otherwise manage or take credit.

Now in those days, the letter “x” represented what was next (as in GenX). Therefore, I suggested that we create the name Mosaix and also call it a Global Network, even at a time when there were still so relatively few in our own country even thinking about multiracial, multiethnic church planting, growth, and development. Together, George and I reasoned that if this was truly a Movement of God and if, in fact, God was revealing a new (rather, reformative) vision for churches to pursue in the 21^st century to some of us in the United States that He would surely be revealing it to others around the world as well... Ministry leaders we would someday meet, as now we have from Australia and New Zealand, Africa and South Africa, folks in Europe, Singapore, islands in the South Pacific, and even the nation of Israel.

One year later, then, we promoted and convened a second gathering in Texas; this time, at Irving Bible Church, again billing it as a Mosaix Regional Conference. This time (November 2005), 100 people attended.

Soon after, the Mosaix Global Network began to take shape with Rev. Jim Spoonts becoming its first Executive Director. By 2006, we began working with Exponential to provide a dedicated pre-conference and main conference workshops on the multiethnic church. That year, too, we launched a website and in 2010, the first Mosaix National Conference in partnership with Outreach magazine and its former editor, the late Jim Long.

Through the years, I’ve tried to keep a timeline of Movement development through books I’ve written as well as to document the historical trajectory of Mosaix as a collective contributor to Movement progress. Indeed, I believe the widely recognized Multiethnic Church Movement is a 100-year movement of God on planet earth, one that in the centuries to come will be recognized as the single greatest catalyst for advance of the Gospel and the Church in the entire 21^st century.

Mark DeYmaz