Most people equate community with neighborhood. This makes sense in the suburbs, but our congregation comes from all over. Last year we worshiped in four locations each week. The new paradigm defines community by where your people are, not your building. Plus, urban people live with the contradiction of a highly concentrated population that is highly disconnected and isolated. Effective community outreach, for us, is where we create community through outreach.

A year ago, we went to Ensenada, Mexico, to upgrade living conditions in the barrios. About 170 adults, both believers and seekers, picked up trash and painted murals. In another project, about 40 of us went to Thailand to serve 500 overseas workers for ten days.

In a 13-month period, over half of our adults were mobilized in a service project outside the U.S. These experiences not only build community within Mosaic, but draw those outside of Christ to faith through the power of biblical community.

• Erwin McManus
  Mosaic
  Los Angeles, California