Davis Mosaics : Shaping a Christianity for the 21st Century
by Dr. Chris Neufeld-Erdman, Senior Pastor, Davis Community Church
A short meditation on the need for spiritual communities like Davis Mosaics and how these kinds of innovative adventures express God’s unfolding dream for Christianity and for the wellbeing of the world.
There are signs all around us that the church of the future will be a hybrid space, a true “commons,” for people of all walks of life—a threshold community that brings together the spiritual and the material, the religious and the non-religious in ways that complement each other rather than compete with each other. The church, as a center for spiritual formation, human transformation, and compassionate engagement, sustains fruitful ways of life, makes us all more open, more generous, more courageous, and makes the world more beautiful, sustainable, resilient, and capable of honoring the sacredness that’s all around us.
We are living in unprecedented times. With rising oceans and increasing human tensions, our planet and all we hold dear is in peril. Though there have been crises throughout human history, we now inhabit a time in which the very future of our species and the planet, itself, is in question. Throughout the world, the realities of greed, oppression, hatred and violence have distorted and deformed the natural world and brought untold suffering to the human community. Such pain might lead to despair, but we have reasons for hope. Human beings may have hastened the peril, but we also have the power to heal and shape a just and more peace-filled future.
Amidst the systemic injustices and brokenness a new way of being is rising, a way that embodies Christ’s way transformation, healing, and reconciliation for the 21st century. The world’s religious and spiritual traditions, despite past failings, nevertheless embody the emerging dream of God’s and offer humanity see for a sustainable future. The sacred texts, rituals, symbols, practices, and transformative powers of religious communities have the capacity to awaken the human heart, stir spiritual and intellectual awakening, and kindle a communal imagination that can contribute to the wellbeing of the world.
This is a threshold time, and it’s high time Christians, energetically and innovatively, claim our divine calling—rising to the challenge, rejecting despair and fatalism—and truly seek the well-being of the planet.
Toward this end, Davis Mosaics, and Pastor Stephen Moon, build bridges, innovate lavishly, meet practical needs, and work cooperatively on behalf of God’s dream for the world’s wellbeing. Its habits of radical hospitality, conscious and intentional pluralism, and the sacramentalism of its way of life—low-bar religiosity and high-bar community—all centered around table fellowship and fostering the common good are a witness to the pathway exemplified by the early Christians who moved souls from belonging into behavioral shifts and lastly toward beliefs.
In an age of disaffiliation and non-affiliation with religious institutions, Davis Mosaics, is charting the pathway into the future of Christianity—deeply embodied and incarnational, post-doctrinal, inclusive, artistic and aesthetic, and sacramental in the truest sense of the world—the gathered people as a sign of God’s dream (or intention) for the world.
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The Rev. Dr. Chris Neufeld-Erdman
Davis Community Church
