Wow, how’d you find out I’d quoted you…? I forgot to let you know (what I usually do when I quote someone I don’t know.)

You commented that it looks like I’ve joined the "Mosaic Movement" and wanted to know more.

Well… no, I didn’t join Mosaic. It kinda popped up around me.

See, back in 1994, I joined the Church on Brady — who’s official name was, and still is as far as I know, First Southern Baptist Church, East Los Angeles. It was originally founded in the 1940s out of a little store-front on Whittier Boulevard in East LA. It eventually moved to property on Brady Street in East LA, where it still was in the 1960s. The racial turmoil of the times caused people to drop the "Southern Baptist" part from the name of the church, preferring instead to say, "I go to that little church on Brady Street." The nickname stuck and eventually all the signs were change to The Church on Brady.

I started coming at the urging of a friend, Darla, around the end of 1993. I joined the sound team in January ’94 and joined the church a few months later. I’ve been a member there ever since. At that time Bro. Tom Wolf was the pastor. In April ’94, however, Erwin McManus was named Senior Pastor and Bro. Tom took the position of Teaching Pastor.

In 1997 we made our first foray into services at a new location — East LA College (ELAC). We planned to start meeting there full-time come January 1998 because we were outgrowing the Brady site. This presented a small problem. The Church on Brady would no longer be the church "on Brady Street." Now what? I remember some talk about what we would call ourselves… and for some reason I want to say we had kind of a naming contest going, or something… but I can’t remember. At any rate, Erwin eventually came to the name, Mosaic; the elders voted and it was decided. Mosaic we would now be.

In 1998 we moved both our morning and evening services off the Brady Street property. The only thing that still met there were our Wednesday evening classes and monthly Lord Supper services. ELAC was one of the meeting places. The second was a downtown nightclub, at that time still call the Shangri-La, once owned by Prince. We had actually looked into buying it, but when we couldn’t agree on a price it was sold to someone else. That new owner was willing to rent us the space for our "Urban" services on Sunday evening.

Unfortunately, there’s a growing misconception that Mosaic began with that "Urban" service at the SoHo (as the club was then called). This isn’t true on many levels. As I’ve pointed out, Mosaic was begun as First Southern Baptist over sixty years ago now. Also, we’d been having those Sunday night services at the Brady site for over a year before moving to the nightclub. However, up until we moved to the Mayan night club a few months ago, the SoHo had been the longest venue we’d been at since we ventured off Brady Street. I think many people hear Erwin refer to that fact and assume that Mosaic started in ’98 with that service. Just NOT true. 🙂

Eventually our morning "Metro" services were moved back to the Brady site for a year or so, mid-99 thru 2001. Somewhere around April or May 2001 (I was in India at the time) Metro moved over to San Gabriel High school, and met there until March of 2004, when it moved over to the night club as well.

In 2003 we finally sold the Brady site property, and in 2004 we purchased some land in… La Puente area, I think… I’m not really sure where it is. I think it will eventually become the office facilities. And hopefully, with any grace from God, it will also become a housing facility for our overseas workers when they are in the States (a quad-type home featuring 4 2-3 bedroom apartments with laundry facilities and small kitchenettes all of which share a main large common living room-type common area has been suggested by some friends of mine…).

That’s kind of the history of Mosaic/Church on Brady/First Southern Baptist Church as it pertains to me. My involvement with it, however, and my convictions run much deeper and are more complex.

Let me see if I can detail all that out in another post… or two…