STRUCTURE
At Mosaic, we strive to establish ourselves on Scripture, and follow what we find to be the clearest example of church structure in the New Testament. There are two ongoing roles in the New Testament church for the equipping, management and care of the church: pastors and deacons.
Two Biblical Offices: Pastors and Deacons.
All throughout the Bible, the people of God is always governed by God Himself. The technical term is theocracy (ruled by God). In the Old Testament, God always communicated with His people through His prophets and elders. Prophets are people who speak forth God’s Word. In the New Testament, God designed his church to be led by pastors. The word “pastor” in the Bible is interchangeably used to also mean, “pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11), “elders,” “bishops” or “overseers” (Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:5,7, 1 Timothy 3:1, Acts 20:17,28). These servant-leaders are called to shepherd the flock–preach, care, teach, equip and provide vision and direction for the Body.
The word “deacon” means servant or anyone who serves. This role was established by the apostles (Acts 6:1-7) to address a need in the church. The need was: the church, always fed the needy among them, much of the work was done by the apostles. But the church grew enormously too quickly and the apostles were still in charge of the church’s feeding program themselves. The work bogged them down because it affected their primary role of teaching the Word and praying. As a response to the need, they appointed seven men, full of the Spirit to serve in that area. Deacons are servant-leaders who free the pastors from doing what they can’t and help them focus on their primary role.
GOVERNANCE
Christians who invest their hearts, time, energy, families, and finances in the building of a local church deserve to find confidence in their church leadership. We are called to find leaders with integrity and respect when making decisions that affect their lives.
We are led by pastors. All throughout scripture, there are evidences that each church had plurality of pastors with the definitive role of spiritual direction and oversight of the church. They are responsible to spiritually protect, shepherd and equip the body for the work that Christ prepared for us to do. Among the plurality of pastors is our Lead Pastor who is the primus inter pares (first among equals), responsible and accountable in matters of vision, direction and preaching. Together with other pastors, they steward our core values, vision and mission, and governance/decision making.
We all serve as deacons. One of Mosaic’s core values is “Total Mobilization” which means, every person who chooses to be part of the movement will embrace its vision and mission to heart, and will participate by serving in the life, mission and ministry of the church. Our understanding of the word “deacon” in the Bible is in its literal form, a deacon is a person who serves, and not its modern day evolved form of a “board.” Our emphasis is more on the function rather than the title. Because of this ethos, we believe that every one who serves in any ministry is a deacon. Whether one serves as an usher or a children’s worker, doing stage set up or food preparation, every participant is a servant-leader. We believe this to be in line with the Biblical definition of a deacon.
We are protected by trustees.
Even though this role of trustee is not explicitly found anywhere in Scripture, the Canadian government requires registered charities like Mosaic to have a team of people who will be responsible for the legal and financial oversight and accountability, with which we heartily comply. They work together to ensure that we are good stewards of the resources we have been entrusted with, and ensure that we are legally sound in our financial reporting and practices. The Team of Trustees at Mosaic is composed of active church participants, who are one with us in vision and passion, serving in ministries as deacons or as lay elders/volunteer pastors.
We are encouraged by partners.
As an autonomous local church that associates with a larger family of churches, we submit ourselves in accountability to that family in matters of teaching, missions and cooperation. They also provide encouragement and strengthening. Mosaic partners with two families of churches: the Association of Related Churches (our network) and the Canadian National Baptist Convention (our denomination). As an autonomous church, we are not required to be under their direction or control, but we make ourselves accountable to the family to ensure proper check and balance.
