Mosaic Community Church

Today we worshiped at Mosaic Community Church, 2801 North Charles Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15214, www.mosaicpittsburgh.org.


Bob’s thoughts:

The building is an old Catholic church with ornate architecture but without the glitz. The restrooms are right inside the main entrance and well marked. Some signage outside would be helpful, however.

This church is in an area that not too many years ago I refused to travel without at least one gun, but God has been at work here.

Inside there is a table with coffee, juice, and breakfast items. There is a smaller brass cross on the Communion table, which is just right. I think a large cross would have gotten lost with the architecture.

The projector was not working, so there was a bulletin with the worship songs and readings. Where it was nice to have the announcements and week’s schedule, I much prefer the music on the screen. But it was good to have an order of worship, if only to be prepared for the offering, which was before the Word.

There is a great mix at the appropriately-named Mosaic Church: age, race and economic status. The abundance of beautiful children at Mosaic always helps me to feel welcome.

I thought the sermon missed a good point in the wonderful orchestration of God in our lives, to trust, to let your baby, adrift in a tarred basket, to let go and let God. Shouldn’t miss a chance to reiterate that.

The sermon did develop from the 40-year increments in Moses’ life to a personal message from God for me. I’ve been looking forward to getting to my Promised Land like Moses and realized I was forgetting the importance of the journey over the destination.

I wish the service would have ended with the recording of the Martin Luther King speech. It tied in wonderfully with the direction of the sermon.

It’s been easy for me to think that God will use me once He gets me ready, how when I’m prepared I’ll be ready to do these great things for God. But today I realized He has been doing great things all along and letting me help. I don’t need that Promised Land on this Earth; my faith will take me to the Promised Land that matters and maybe He will continue to let me help along the way. God is certainly at work at Mosaic. Come in and be accepted as you are.


Jan’s thoughts:

Mosaic is one of the churches we have visited several times before, as we’ve known the pastors, Saleem Ghubril and Ed Dixon, and some of the members for years. It’s a unique place, and Saleem and his wife Patty live and raise their family in this area. The evidence of what God has done through them and their work has been obvious. One of Bob’s good friends lived nearby, and Bob has told me stories about the area and how dangerous it used to be compared with how it is now, and God’s fingerprints are apparent. God has clearly used Saleem and his ministry to bring incredible good to this neighborhood on so many levels.

The people at the church are friendly, and the congregation is an intriguing mix of ages, races, and economic circumstances, with lots of babies and children. Worship begins at 11, and at 10:30 a breakfast is offered consisting of coffee, tea, juice, cereal, pastries, and probably some other items but I didn’t look that closely (trying to avoid temptation). It’s a gracious beginning to a time of worship.

The music is contemporary in style, although not always content. What I mean is that many of the songs are more modern, but there are sometimes older, traditional hymns done in a modern style that includes guitar, drums, keyboards, etc. And the music leaders have incredible voices, so it’s easy to follow along (speaking as a non-singer).

Saleem’ message was based on Deuteronomy 34:1-9 (Moses’ viewing of the Promised Land and subsequent death) and Joshua 1:1-7 (Joshua’s commissioning and God’s promises to him). He also mentioned Hebrews 11 and the list of those who believed God and His promises despite not living to see them come to fruition. Personally I felt it was unfortunate that the message then took a political turn.

Be that as it may, I was also disappointed at some missed theological points that could have served to amplify God’s power and goodness. When he referred to Moses’ mother’s placing Moses in a basket and into the Nile River to save his life, he could have pointed out that what she was doing was trusting God with the future of her son. And God then gave her son back to her for a time (which is all any of us is ever given with our children – a time). But she trusted God, and I believe God was pleased with her faith. He could’ve pointed out that when we give our blessings back to God, God does something great with them.

That God did not allow Moses to step into the Promised Land because of a previous act that demonstrated a lack of faith, but God still kept His promise to His children. So apparently our lack of faith does not prevent God from being God, for which I’m very grateful since I sometimes exhibit a lack of faith.

When Moses died, he was buried but no one knew where, which I believe was an extremely gracious act on God’s part. Had they known the location of the bones of this beloved prophet of God, they would have fallen into the very human trap of continuing to look at the past instead of the future that God had prepared for them.

That we all get discouraged at times, and God told Joshua to have courage (in other words not to be discouraged) and through these passages He tells us the same thing. He promised Joshua His presence and power, and those same promises are for us since His Holy Spirit lives in us.

In other words I wish the message had been more about our Almighty God and His sovereign care for our world and our lives. Now that’s a truth I find heartening.