I think it’s important to not take ourselves too seriously, and be willing to have a little fun, even poking fun at our own ministries. April Fool’s Day provides a great opportunity to do so, and I took it! One of our churches little quirks is that we start all of our gatherings :02 minutes later than logic would dictate. So, it’s 9:02, not 9:00. It’s 11:17, not 11:15. Our founding pastor will tell you that he did it just to make it stand out and catch your eye a bit more as you drove by a sign. It’s one of those silly things that people remember, and plenty of us make fun of it as well. A couple of years ago, we actually considered changing it due to the cheese factor, but decided that at this point, it’s just a part of who we are. We are the :02 church. But what if suddenly, we decided to become the :03 church? That was the basis of my April Fool’s Day post that went on our website and throughout our social media. People had a lot of fun with it. Here is the article I wrote:
Today, April 1st, 2016, Mosaic Church is making a huge announcement about new gathering times coming this weekend. Effective immediately, all gathering times will start one minute later then they have in the past. A statement from the Elders read thusly:
“We all know how precious time is these days. Literally every minute counts. At a recent Elder Meeting, we were discussing this problem and realized that we had both the power and the spiritual authority to do something about it, so we decided that after 13 years of being the :02 church, we will become the :03 church as all of our gatherings will start one minute later than they used to. We are calling it the “One More Minute” initiative.”
As with all major decisions, we sought a great deal of feedback. We thought you’d enjoy hearing some of the input we received regarding this landmark “One More Minute” initiative. While most of it is negative, we’re moving forward anyway, because, well . . . we already updated our google listings, and that’s a huge pain to change.
Pastor Renaut commented that he was “so excited give the people of Mosaic one more minute to spend living on mission by starting gatherings one minute later”. When someone over-hearing the conversation pointed out that if the gatherings also ended one minute later, there was no real time savings, he looked confused and said in his trademark South African accent: “I don’t worry about those kinds of details, this is why we hired Phil Taylor to be our Executive Pastor. Talk to him.”
When Phil Taylor was asked if in fact any time would really be gained in switching the start time of a 90 minute gathering to :03 instead of :02 he seemed to suddenly grasp this obvious oversight and looked embarrassed. Then he got very defensive saying, “Look, the new signage has been printed and installed and that stuff is not cheap! So what’s done is done.”
Carrie Waters, Mosaic’s Guest Connection Director is usually very positive, but seemed rather put out by this change: “Do you know how long I’ve been saying 9:02, 5:02, 7:02??? You think I can just switch that overnight in my brain?! No! I can’t! I’m still writing the date as 2015 and it’s well into the spring! It’s going to take me years to make this switch.”
Jessica Rodriguez, Mosaic Kids newest staff member had this to say: “Honestly, it doesn’t matter what time the gathering starts, they are still going to end late. It’s just the way it is. Just remember this, while your singing the chorus of Oceans one more time, I’m on the other side of the building with 500 screaming children.”
Lay Elder, Paul Mascia who is a Lawyer and entrepreneur, gave a very measured answer when asked about the change. “We ran the pro-forma’s on this move and did some cost/benefit analysis. I can show you the financial modeling on a spreadsheet if you’d like . . . worst case scenario, it’s a wash in terms of time gained. But I feel like we have to step out in faith sometimes and take a risk. I figure, we have nothing to lose really and at least one minute to be gained. Jesus cared about that one lost sheep, I think we should care about that one minute.”
An attender who wished to remain anonymous said: “Truthfully, no one really cares when the gathering starts, or even what happens during it for that matter. All they care about is the donuts from Donut King. Those things are addictive! I can’t get enough! Forget “living on mission”, as far as I’m concerned, I just gained an extra minute to munch on my jelly donut.”
Brady White, Mosaic’s Disney campus pastor, has refused to adopt this time change pointing out that, “Cast members don’t like change. They still complain about the closing of Horizons and Maelstrom! No, We’re sticking with 8:02, thank-you.”
So, even with all of this negative feedback, our ill-conceived change will move forward as planned despite the obvious lack of intelligence and thought that went into it. If you attend Mosaic Church, you might have just gained a minute . . . but probably not. Check out Mosaic’s new gathering times at Oakland on thursday night at 7:03PM and 8:33PM, Sunday at 9:03AM, 11:18AM and 5:03PM. Winter Garden’s new time is 10:03AM. Mosaic at WDW will continue with their 8:02PM gathering despite a written warning from the Elders signed by all but one who felt he needed more time to process the decision.
Happy April Fools’ Day.
My name is Phil. I spent 20 years as an Executive Pastor and now I serve churches all over through consulting and coaching. I wrote "Defining The Executive Pastor Role" and "Eldership Development-From Application to Affirmation". My greatest passion is helping others bring vision into reality. I've been married for 25 years, and we have three kids and one grandchild.
