The steps from dysfunction to fully functioning Christian.
| posted 9/16/2004
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Webster's defines ethos as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group.
Remember when the seat belt law was first implemented? Most of us resented it. We knew it was good for us, but it was a hassle. We never saw not buckling up as immoral. Illegal yes. But they took our freedom from us!
Now, when people drive with their kids unbuckled, what do you think? Probably that the parent is negligent, putting the children in danger. We've come a long way from throwing eight kids into the back of a truck!
The law can inform your actions, but ethos informs your values. Ethos is more powerful than rules, methods, strategies, or even laws. Don't underestimate the spirit of a healthy community in shaping an individual into a disciple.
Our church expects people to invest themselves in serving Jesus by serving people. We insist that isolation and individualism are a part of the problem, not part of the solution. Relationships are essential to health and maturity.
This conviction is so strong that we actually changed the name of our church to accentuate this. A mosaic is an art form made up of broken and fragmented pieces of glass, tile, or other material.
Through the mastery of an artist, they're formed together into something beautiful and meaningful—especially when light strikes it.
Calling our church "Mosaic" is our declaration that we are a community of broken and fragmented people formed together by the master artist to reflect his beauty—especially when his light strikes us!
Here in Los Angeles, effective ministry is impossible if you cannot make whole disciples out of broken people.
This is exactly what our church is about. Our theme: this is a culture that heals.
We found the self, and fractured it
There was a time when people did not think of "myself." People had an assimilated view of self—a person's only sense of "self" was as part of the tribe. It was "we" before "me." An isolated individual? Inconceivable.
Then we developed a conscious self. Though the concept developed long before Descartes, it was solidified with his "I think, therefore I am." The study of personal identity is a fairly recent phenomenon. This sense of self is in many ways the gift and curse of modernity. Ever since, we have been trying to figure out who we are!
We no longer see our identities as assimilated; we try to strip away external influences so we can know who we really are. Our view of ownership exhibits this shift. Once men were the property of the state or king. Once tribes belonged to the land and not the land to any person. Once most people did not think in terms of their personal rights or choices. Anything we possessed was a gift of the gods.
The conscious self quickly developed into the idolized self. We not only began seeing ourselves as the reference point for everything around us, we understood reality as an extension of ourselves. Now we own not only possessions, like cars and houses, but have "my style" and "my preferences." Sometimes it goes to absurd extremes: "get out of my space," "you're breathing my air," or "I have my own personal truth."
