ORIGINS — the MOSAIC leadership experience 2006
ORIGINS
the MOSAIC leadership experience 
Have you experienced ORIGINS –the Mosaic Leadership Experience? If yes, share with others in the “Comments” section below why they should make the journey.
And while you’re here “Get a Vox.”
February 24th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Good timing, I’ve never been to an Origins… though I keep up with the notes and blogs that get produced from it each year. I actually just got the DVD’s to last year and started going through it. Messages are amazing… I know it’s not the same without the networking though.
February 24th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I am part of the Mosaic Seattle community. We have sent people to Origins for 4 years now. For us, Origins has always been just the right word at just the right time. Myself and other team members have felt, in a tangible way, that we are not alone - many others are on the same journey.
It reminds me of what it might have felt like to attend a Hebrew festivals - reconnections… remembering why we’re here… rejoicing… reimagining…” re-surging” into the future.
It’s cool to think that that people will travel from more places and greater distances than ever before to be in the same place, at the same time. See you there!
February 25th, 2006 at 11:28 am
i have attended ORIGINS three times and have always found something new. this is an expereience that does not become stale. i highly recommend this event for church planters, pastors and leaders who wish to take themselves (and the church they lead) to the next level of ministry.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
cool… welcome to the community =)
February 27th, 2006 at 9:24 am
I’ve attended ORIGINS
February 27th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Phooey! Hit enter too soon. I’ve attended ORIGINS twice and am going again this year. ORIGINS was life-changing for me. I haven’t been content with status quo since then. This will stir in you a longing for more of Christ and true community. The creativity is unreal and profoundly moving. Do anything you can to get to ORIGINS this year.
I would also encourage anyone who isn’t currently a leader not to rule out coming because you aren’t in a leadership role. This experience will inspire you to new levels and you may suddenly find yourself leading, whether within your own church or leading a new endeavor.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Origins 2005 was awesome!!! I was really challenged about the who and why of being the church. That was refreshing - so many conferences give the “how to” and you walk away eager to plop a model down that is not contextual. Origins challenges leaders to love God and love people in their contexts, valuing what God values there and connecting with the culture. I am thankful for Erwin and Alex’s heart in this. Looking forward to Origins 2006.
-jason
February 28th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Like so many so far…Origins changed some things for me. I’ve been once, but it seems like more. Origins WAS a divine moment(s) for me. Coming there was like coming home and having friends around me that knew me and were used by God to set me free from so much “stuff”…
I needed a lift when I went and found so much more…vision, direction, purpose, and passion…literally a whole new leaf!
I’m going again this year and bringing Heath with me…our relationship has been born out of a God-focused direction born out of Origins and the relationships and the empowerment that came from that experience. It’s all very overwhelming and incredible!
I too am thankful for all that has been done to bring this all about…all these moments, people stepping into the future and living out God’s purposes for their lives…to be SO impacted, so incredibly touched by all that happens…it is overwhelming. Yeah, and the music is good too!
February 28th, 2006 at 7:57 am
I’ve never been to Origins… Didn’t know about it until last year. But I bought the DVDs for 2004. They are awesome! I watch them over and over. I’ve shared them with friends. We used them on our staff retreat this year and everyone was impressed and challenged in so many ways! Origins is definately on my To Do list - especially with the addition of ETHOS this year. If anything is cutting edge in the leadership / church planting arena, Origins is it!
February 28th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Guys,
I have never been to ORIGINS before or seen the DVDs, so I know technically I shouldn’t be posting here. But I am going this year and am so excited by all that you have said here! I am so pumped up and just can’t wait to get there….
Are there any blogs of people who have been there previously?
Bring it on…
February 28th, 2006 at 9:47 am
I have only attend a mini-Origins (Orlando 2005), but my wife attended the full conference last year.
We are both going in May and bringing others with us. We find Alex and Erwin to be gifted communicators with fresh and important words for the Church in these days. I see Origins as a catalyst for renewal among followers of Jesus Christ and for missional outreach to a vast and mostly untouched population of persons who desperately need to encounter Gospel and the God to whom it testifies.
Additionally, I am looking forward to meeting face to face many persons whom I have encountered through the Blogosphere over the last year.
February 28th, 2006 at 11:01 am
I attended Origins in 2004. It was easily one of the most formative leadership/ministry experiences that I have gone to.
Origins greatly expanded my idea of ministry through the ideas of relevance to the culture; a cultural architecture/environment; recognizing how important ethos is; and mission versus missions.
I would love to be able to go again this year, but don’t think I will be able to due to time off of work, etc.
Highly, highly recommended.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I went to Origins last year. It rocked! I learned so much and met many great people that I’ve been able to bounce ideas off of ever since. The speakers were great, the seminars informative and the creative aspects of the conference inspiring. I can’t wait for the conference again this year!
March 1st, 2006 at 10:43 am
I went to Origins in 2004 and it was an incredible challenge. It left a deep impression on me and my ministry hasn’t been the same. The experience is full of passion and a call to faith, a kick-in-the-pants for me. I’m bringing members of our lead team out to the conference this year. It’s such an encouragement to see a missional church in action and to be in conversation with other leaders!
March 1st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
I recently was telling a new friend about Origins. I have participated at Origins the last 2 years as well as three of the regional Origins. All of these experiences have moved me closer towards the heart of God! I brought a group of people last year and they found the experience to be life-changing. I plan on bringing a group this year as well! With the hundreds of conferences to choose from - Origins stands alone. It is really the ‘Un-conference.’ At Origins you will not find a ‘model.’ You will not find a ‘method.’ You will experience the leadership gathering of a transformational community. It is a catalyst for the missional movement of God that has been re-ignited in the Church. This is far more than a groovy, catchy phrase. Mosaic has become famous for stating ‘The Church is not here to meet our needs. We are the Church and we are here to meet the needs of the world.’ What I have found at Origins is an environment that facilitates discovery, development, and deployment. In short Origins invites you on a journey that is moving forward to recapture humanity as God intended. It is an adventure inviting you to find your future in the beginning. It is a path into the mystic. It is almost like going to the World Cup!
March 1st, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I’ve only attended one ORIGINS, back in 2001, and for some reason I left thinking it would never happen again. It couldn’t. It was a Jacobs’ Ladder experience, one that leaves you awake but afire to live the dream you just had… the sort of experience after which all you can do is make a pile of rocks and stutter something incoherent like “surely God is on this planet [in a way I never grasped before] and I did not know it!” Those who weren’t in the dream don’t know what you mean. Until you begin to live that holy dream along with them, daily.
JohnEdgar said it well: ORIGINS is an “un-conference”. As he says, there is no model or method of ministry being “sold” to you. It’s more of an experience, an unfolding, a freeing and lifebreathing sort of thing.
For me, ORIGINS introduced me to the power of metaphor and the freedom to wield it: invited me to go back to my origins, this world’s origins, and rummage about there for the language and passion and power that are needed here and now in order to create the future. Create it, not react to it or analyze it to death.
For you, I don’t know what will happen at ORIGINS. It’s a nexus between heaven and earth. (So are you, if you are in Christ but not yet with Him in paradise.) It’s a setting in which God can speak to you, crush you, heal you, empower you, or …I don’t know, it’s almost whatever you and He make of it.
One of the best parts of ORIGINS is the other people you meet there. So many who know and behave as if they are nexii between heaven and earth– a humbling, terrifying, giddy knowledge. ORIGINS puts lots of such people in close proximity. They achieve critical mass, inject awesome worship, draw out the control rods of fear and self, and… stand back! Something will be destroyed in the reaction.
I hope it will be me, this year.
And I hope it will be you.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:06 pm
whoa.
I said all that from memory, without going to the ORIGINS website… then I remembered, ORIGINS was where I discovered that book! For some reason, those two life-changing things had become disconnected from one another in my mind, as if two such precious things simply had to occupy their own worlds.
The book An Unstoppable Force ought to be a primary textbook for all church planters and pastors. I have served on three churchplanting teams, pastored, and served on an elder board, and my leadership experience divides into “before reading it” and “after reading it”:
• before I had read that book, I had been groping my way toward what it said. I think I would have mostly gotten there by myself… in my seventies. I have wept, thinking how much might have been different had I read the book sooner.
• after I read that book, I had no more excuses. All my failures in ministry were mine alone. I knew better now. But so thankful to have the “power tools”– metaphors, plugged into Scripture and Spirit– necessary to do, and to be, all that God imagines for me.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:34 pm
I have been blessed to be a part of several Origins events over the past two years. God has challenged me through the ministry of Alex and Erwin. It is essential for leaders to experience environments that help unlock the box instead of keeping you in one. You will receive valuable spiritual encouragement as well as practical direction for specific areas of ministry. Best of all, you will have the opportunity to catch a great vision for being on mission along with hundreds of other hungry Kingdom people.
During one of the closing sessions, we had a prayer time over the pastors and church planters in attendance. As each pastor and church planter shouted out their city, the Holy Spirit began to fall on us. We were all overwhelmed by the awesome privilege of being on mission with God to see His Kingdom advance.
I encourage you to attend Origins and have an open heart. You know what God can do if you let him.
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Our team has been to Origins each of the past three years and are eagerly anticipating participating again this year. Simply put, Origins is the best conference for church and ministry leaders anywhere. Prepare to hear God’s voice, see His face, and be challenged by His love for a lost and broken world!
Drew Hage
Genesis the Church
Detroit, Michigan
March 8th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
If you only get to do one leadership development opportunity this year, as a team or individual, make it ORIGINS. It captures the essence of what makes Mosaic the innovative,missional community that it is. It’s a gathering for mystic leaders, dreamers, servants and creators. If you’re “ministry conferenced” out or tired of being sold a specific model, come connect with people who believe that the Spirit of God wants to unleash new expressions in new contexts with unique teams.
peace
Steve Norman
Genesis: The Church
Detroit
March 10th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Origans helped change my life. Forget every conference, seminar, retreat, or church meeting of any kind. I was shaken during the first 5 minutes and crying soon after. I was face to face with the living God of the Universe. Over several days I saw many ways God had been trying to speak to me that I had missed.
Several years ago, I was somehow drawn to check it out, but concerned that as a filmaker I would be out of place with hundreds of pastors. What I found out is that I am a teacher. I am now on a journey, following Jesus… for me and to have something to say.
Lawrence Reid
filmaker/mosaic/VOX
Los Angeles
March 15th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Attending Origins last year was one of the highlights of the year for me. I was stimulated by the experience in a multitude of waysâ€â€intellectual, artistic, spiritual, and relational. Many conferences can be captured with a series of MP3 recordings. Origins is so much more than eloquent lectures, however. It is filled with multi-sensory encounters that breathe life into the soul and a rich communty of fellow pilgrims to join you on the journey.
Kirk Schneemann
Spiritual Entrepreneur
Frontline Church, Ann Arbor
April 18th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Top Ten Reasons to Hit Up Origins this year:
10) Southern California weather
Meeting new friends on the journey of the missional life
9) Sight Seeing (Hollywood, OC, Pacific Ocean, etc…)
7) Incredible Creative Spirit and Vibe that dwells with our Mosaic LA friends
6) Servant Leadership
5) Passion for Life and Living
4) Late Night Conversations over the Future the way God sees it
3) Commissioning of World Changers
2) Vision, Excitement and Purpose for the Path that lies ahead of you
1) 2 Words——- “IN and OUT” (if you don’t know…then ask!)
See you all in 4 weeks!