how to get good wine

If you didn't know, I’m the campus director for our church’s second campus. I’ve been with Mosaic Church for 14 years, plus 6 months of launch team work before our first service in 2016. I have volunteered in every area of service and came on staff in 2018 to launch this second location. We recently celebrated our 2nd anniversary and it felt like a new chapter. Turning 2. A toddler. No more baby phase. And as I do with all of my babies (as this campus has surely felt like my 3rd child), it came with reflection:

Year 1:

So much makeup.

I had no idea what I was doing. I went from teaching kindergarten to being a SAHM who only tutored a few hours a week to being in a major leadership role. I didn’t know what I didn’t know so I was literally running blindly.

I couldn’t control the setup, if people would come, if the service would be good so I controlled what I could, which was my face. The more nervous or insecure I was, the longer it took to get ready in the morning, adding layers of makeup, recurling my hair, doing whatever I could to present well in hopes that it would distract from all I lacked. I felt like everyone knew I was a phony, not good enough to lead a church, so I did whatever I could to convince them.

I would rehearse my stage time. How would I welcome people? How would I end the service? I even wrote out and tried to memorize my prayers so I wouldn’t stand up there with nothing to say. I doubted my abilities, the strength of my faith & if I had actually been called to any of this or if I had just taken a job because there was a need for someone - anyone - to step into it.

Year 2:

The year of therapy.

I became aware of how much I was trying to hide behind a mask so I was able to ease up on the makeup…a little.

Digging into my past and the things I was unknowingly carrying around showed me things in myself I hadn’t seen before. I was insanely aware of how broken I was as a person (like all people are) and it was overwhelming. In one sense I could open up and live more authentically, but on the other hand, I was keeping private intensely hard and personal things. Things the world didn’t need to know but still made me feel like a fake because I had to keep so much under the surface.

I had to rely on God more because I was asking him to move miracles in my life where my efforts had run out. I was ready to quit in more than one area. It became apparent that not relying on Him would lead to failure, even as far as Metro was concerned, because there were days that it felt like it was over.

I started to follow His leading and to trust Him that He had called me to this. I began to trust in myself as I let go & let Him work through me.

Year 3:

I can’t exactly do a recap post as year 3 is just getting started. But I can tell you how it’s already different leading into it.

On Sunday mornings, I spend time with God first. I pray for my teams, our people and our city. I ask Him what He wants me to say and stay open all morning to hearing the answer.

I don’t need as much time for makeup & covering up anymore (investing in skincare does get a little credit here) because I know my worth isn’t in what photographs. It’s in interactions & how I connect people to Jesus.

I don’t do as much on Sundays because I have let go of control. I trust my volunteers, who are on mission to create a space for people to come together. I rely on God and Holy Spirit nudgings to know the needs of the people who walk in. I don’t practice or rehearse my stage time & often don’t know what I’m going to say until it’s coming out of my mouth.

It’s almost tangible. The assurance that God is in this. We’re here because God wants this. I’m so ready to trust in what He can do when I’m willing to step farther & farther out of the way.

I’m reading Chasing Vines by Beth Moore - which I cannot recommend to you highly enough - and in Chapter 8, she talks about new vines in the vineyard, how they are grafted in, planted in just the right place and cared for by the gardener. Do you know when the first grapes appear on those new vines? It’s in year 3.

Year 3. The branches jobs in year 1 & 2 are to become rooted to the main vine. To find a home in their location. To be pruned back, to rely on the vine and to stay alive. Then, then, in year 3 the grapes appear. After the struggle, there is fruit. And it doesn’t just appear, if it makes it through the early process, it flourishes.

Whether or not you have a flair for metaphor, surely you can’t miss this one. We will flourish in year 3. We have held on through low attended weekends, small volunteer teams, power outages, fire alarms, discouragement and doubt. And we are going into year 3 stronger than ever with people who are ready to spread the message and movement of Jesus in this city.

This is how we know we are living in him:
Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
1 John 2:5-6 (NLT)

You want in? Come abide with me. Not in me but with me, in Him. there’s plenty of room for anyone who wants to cling to Jesus and sit in Him. When He moves, we move. When He stays, we stay. We walk like He does. And the fruit we will produce this year - the lives changed, the stories that will come - will be disproportionate to who we are. Wine production far greater than any of us single little grapes could produce on our own. We’re all capable of doing good work. The difference, the way we’re going to go about it, is in relying on Jesus and trusting his message. Apart from him we can do nothing we couldn’t already do anyway. Apart from Him, we can do nothing only He can do.

Years 1 & 2 I wasn’t separate from Christ. But when you have high capacity to get stuff done and everything in your job requires that you center your work around His ministry, it’s easy to revolve around the edge of Jesus, never quite abiding in Him, just moving real close to His spirit. From the outside it looks the same so it will take deliberate effort to make the difference & actually abide in Him.

I sound like I’ve got it all figured out. But don't be fooled. On our next anniversary, you can remind me how much I still didn’t know and how much I learned this year. I’ll take it because I hope I never stop learning. It’s the only way to never stop growing.

And we can always use new wine.

Edited to add:

I wrote this on March 3rd after celebrating our anniversary on March 1st. We had one more service in our building before Covid shut everything down.

It’s definitely not the way I would have scripted the start of our third year. But it does set us up to rely on him to move. We have no choice but to be out of the way, disconnected and separated from each other. But the community & connection that is happening outside of the church walls, outside of Sunday mornings, outside of any system we had implemented, reflects God’s hand so clearly that it consistently brings me to tears.

I don’t get it and I don’t know why but I know in my soul that God is in this, specifically for us, Metro. And this will be the beginning of something beautiful that we could not have done on our own.