It's time to Pivot! In episode ten of season four, co-hosts Terri Elton and Dee Stokes welcome this weeks special guest, Dr. Rosario Picardo.

Special Guest: Dr. Rosario Picardo.

SHOW NOTES:

Connect with Dr. Roz via email (roz@wearemosaic.org) or visit his website, rosariopicardo.com.

Suggested resource: Dynamite Prayer: A 28 Day Prayer Experiment

Roz Picardo: From the very beginning, the focus was to become multi-ethnic. I believe it's a biblical mandate. You know, Revelation 7:9 "Every tongue, tribe and nation will be worshiping together under heaven." And we don't have to wait until we get to heaven to do that. But we can do it now.

Terri Elton: Welcome to Pivot. I'm Terri Elton from Luther Seminary.

Dee Stokes: And I'm Dr. Dee back with you for another episode of the Pivot podcast. We're so excited today to have another Seeds alum. I'm so excited that Dr. Rosario Picardo is here with us today. And if I had some clapping going on in the background, I would just clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. That he is joined us today. Dr. Roz, as he's affectionately known, is a first generation Sicilian American and co pastor of Mosaic Church in Dayton, Ohio. He's also an author and he's a coach at Picardo Coaching LLC. He's got several degrees. He's a master of divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. He has a doctor of ministry from United Theological Seminary, and we are so excited to have him today. Welcome, Dr. Roz.

Roz Picardo: Thanks. I'm honored to be with you all today, Dee and Terry, and the opportunity to just share.

Dee Stokes: Well, good. Let's open it up. We want to talk about your church. We are talking today about, continue talking about fresh expressions. But we want to talk today from a local church perspective. How did you get this thing started? What do you have going on at Mosaic? Tell us all about it, Roz.

Roz Picardo: Yeah, we're about five and a half years old now, and we just moved into our first permanent facility. We've been in probably ten different facilities throughout our life cycle and even during the pandemic, we went in different parking lots throughout the Dayton area and we had worship on a flatbed truck and we had drive- in services. So we kept the momentum. So we've been in several movie theaters, community centers. We've been even in a mall storefront. So we've been everywhere. And then God led us to a quote unquote, churchy looking building. But it was a gift that we were able to receive it. And with that, a remnant of people that we're looking for new beginning as well. And so what went and started as a church plant then quickly we entered this thing called an adoption of a declining church. Thus we were able to generously receive probably a $4 million building piece of property, and we've been able to flip it and convert it and do an HGTV "flip this church" kind of thing. But from from the very beginning, the focus was to become multi-ethnic. And, you know, I believe it's a biblical mandate. You know, Revelation 7:9 , "every tongue, tribe and nation will be worshiping together under heaven." And we don't have to wait until we get to heaven to do that. But we can do it now. And as we know, one of the most segregated times still in America is on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. And so how can we bring together a diverse group to worship? And so when you come to Mosaic, you see people from all different walks of life. So what started out with the hope and the dream of being multiethnic is now multiethnic, multigenerational. I call it multi income. We have white collar, blue collar, no collar people coming together under the banner of Jesus. And our vision is simple. It's to become a dynamic mosaic of Jesus followers. And notice I say "to become" because it's not anything that we've achieved or arrived at now, but this is going to be a lifelong quest as we long to live in God's preferred future. So that kind of gives a little bit of it. And we we're trying to discern what it means for us to walk, work and worship together in unity of John 17, where Jesus prayed for his disciples that they would be one. But that prayer extends all the way to us today, that we would be one. Jesus didn't guarantee we'd be one, but if we were willing to be one, then the world would know that God sent Jesus and that would be manifest in how we love one another. So it's been a remarkable journey. We have five different worshiping communities. Some could label them as fresh expressions, even. One of those areas that is a new initiative is fighting chance recovery. So we become quickly one of the largest recovery worship gatherings in the area. Then we have full up contemporary acoustic. We even have traditional and we have a service in Spanish as well. And so God is bringing us together and I believe renewal and revival in the church is typically. Done by the what I call the diaspora groups. Folks in recovery, God is bringing the nations to us. So we are living again in a in a time where God's bringing people from other countries here. That's part of it. Those that are neglected as well, the youth and students. And so God's doing a new thing in this realm in Mosaic, and I'm just so thrilled to be a part of it.

Dee Stokes: You touched upon the theological underpinnings of multi ethnicity. I want you to touch on some theology and tell us some other things that you do, Fresh Expression wise, if you will, and just touch on how that's biblically and theologically correct.

Roz Picardo: Yeah. I mean, I think with us with church planting, you're looking you know, you set out. To a direction where God is calling you. And just like a fresh expression, you're I think the first thing everything needs to be undergirded and bathed with prayer. And it's more than just a prayer chain where you're calling so and so to pray. But can you be unified around a prayer and really praying that God would lead you to the right people and the timing of everything and who you're supposed to meet and spaces and time and all of that. And so just like any fresh expression or church planting, everything should be undergirded with prayer. So that team that's gathering together needs to be praying. We do prayer walks and we've done prayer walks. Now we don't go lay hands on people during those walks, but we're praying with our eyes open. What do we see happening? What is God doing in our midst? Is God giving us a burden for a certain area or a certain demographic? And so then I think it leads into persons of peace. Are we praying for those persons of peace? And we see those throughout the Scripture that have connections and networks within a given community. They're your de facto leaders. They're not the ones that maybe are leading from a positional kind of authority, but they know everybody. They're well connected. They may be a business owner and they're wanting to introduce you to other people. They may not even be a Jesus follower, but they have a burden and a love toward you and an affinity. So we see that in the New Testament and we as God's people, need to be praying for those persons of peace, lest we think that we're invoking God's presence in an area versus acknowledging that God's already at work in a given area long before we come on the scene, or our plan to plant a church or a fresh expression. Those are some important components and just as Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. There needs to be some sort of training that's taking place. And so for us, it's crucial that we are led by laity, meaning as much as the religious paid professional is great, we need to return the ministry back to the hands of lay folk. And so we've been able to do that. So one of our fresh expressions, fighting chance recovery is probably 99% lay led. I'm there as a pastoral support and shepherd if something goes wrong, but other than that, I try not to get on stage. I try not to do any of those things because we're trying to give that ministry back to the laity. You know, it talks about in Ecclesiastes, it's often read at weddings: the cord of three strands. And I think for any fresh expression or movement you're starting or ministry, you have to have the person that is the passion person. You know, they're excited about the new work. You have to have the administrative person who is paying attention to the details that need to be taken care of. And then you need the shepherding person who's going to help shepherd the people and the movement. Oftentimes we have an idea for a fresh expression or a new ministry, and then we have no team or we think we are the team. But again, it's empowering the the laity to be able to do the work. So it's equipping the Saints for the work of ministry talks about in Ephesians 4.

Terri Elton: I love it. And I one of the things, my head was going is I'm thinking about people walking the neighborhoods and paying attention to what's going on. And I connected that back to all these different ministries that you talked about specifically. So like this is just a detailed question. Did you start all of them at the same time? Did you, like how are you both listening to the context and birthing ministries and empowering laity, and how do those things kind of fit together?

Roz Picardo: You know, it's a forgotten art of listening that we need to rediscover as the church. And so we may as church leaders, we often have what we think are great ideas, and then we try to impose them on a given community saying, well, this is what you need when the community is saying, "No, we we didn't ask for this." I'm glad you're coming into my neighborhood and doing cleanup work, but we didn't invite you to do that. And so that art of listening, I call it community exegesis. So it's asking yourself and community members and folks, "what what do you believe is the greatest assets or strength of this community?" It could be it togetherness. It could be people like to rally together. It could be the sports team, what, you know, what are the assets? And it's starting there believing that God is at work in a given community long before we've arrived. And then what are the disadvantages in the community? Are there broken marriages? How many single parents are raising kids or single grandparents now raising kids? It's looking at those things. You know, one community that I lived in, they built a new library and then had no library books. They had computers in the boxes and didn't put them together. The kids were failing out of school. There was no recreation for them. So those are some of the disadvantages. And then you look and you pray and say, Hey, where are the opportunities? And so I would casually, I'd go to the mayor's office and ask those three questions. I'd ask people from the community and, hey, tell me what you think here, the strengths, the disadvantages and the opportunities. And I get all that feedback and you could do this as a team. And so really to be able to ask those questions, you have to listen to those that have ears, let them hear. And once we're able to hear, that we can go into peripheral discernment over those opportunities. And things can turn out way different than what you set out to do. Whether it's kids that need to be involved in some sort of activities, well, does an after school program make sense or you do messy church with those families? Or is it, in our case, recovery? You know, Dayton is one of the greatest overdose capitals of the world now. So that's right in our backyard. What are we doing to address it? We hear the cries of the people and the family members. So what what can God be doing to create some steps so that that art of listening is huge with the community or else we're just throwing, you know, something at the wall and hoping it sticks?

Dee Stokes: I love that, Dr. Roz, and I appreciate what you're doing. And I want to ask you this question. So in empowering the laity, it's really important what you said earlier, and I want to come back to that. So if I'm a layperson at your church and I come to you and I have an idea kind of what are the steps I should take or what advice would you give me? Hey, Pastor, I want to do a biker club. I don't know. What can I do? Well, I feel Jesus calling me. Do it.

Roz Picardo: Yeah. So, you know, I ask some questions. How does that feed back into our vision of becoming a dynamic mosaic of Jesus followers? Do you have a cord of three strands? And so I explain that. Then I'll ask who your team is and who what you know, who else is God speaking to about this? And then I'll ask, how much is it going to cost? You know, the the dollar sign, the S, another S for space, and then another S for servants, you know, your unpaid servants. So the three S's, you know, give you a case in point. We have one woman who was passionate about clothing and doing stuff were, you know, with clothes. Well, gosh, I've been involved in that. And wore the t shirt. I don't want to become a hub for clothing, but I said take your vision, research who's doing this well in our community. And so she did that and we said, and be praying. Well, lo and behold, God rose up someone else to ask about, you know, that had that same passion. So we connected those individuals and now we have this kind of mosaic community cares where if there is a need. We have space to contain it and then transport and bring items. But it didn't happen overnight. We had to be patient too. And when our local shelter has record breaking numbers in the last 37 years of having 700 adults spending the night, 80 of those that are children, they communicated the needs to our community and we were able to dispatch our folks. And folks brought bedding and all kinds of items to the church. Well, now it's Leslie Hanes bringing it over and spearheading that charge. But it was because God gave her that burning bush. We didn't squelch the fire. We try to pour gasoline on her burning bush and saying, go forth. But it didn't happen at the speed probably that she wanted it to happen right away. But God was preparing her. In those weeks and those months. For now, she's our, one of our go to person when it comes to those missional components.

Terri Elton: So I was thinking, as you were talking about your role as a leader in this church planting world and it feels more like a coach than it does a traditional pastor. So I can imagine that some of our listeners are going like, okay, wait, what's his job? And what's somebody else's job? Can you just talk about what how do you see how do you understand your role as a leader and maybe what have been challenges for you around that and what have been great opportunities?

Roz Picardo: Yeah, I think it's understanding your wiring and makeup and knowing who God has made you. So I'm more apostle, evangelist, heavy on the apostle, and so that's always going to be me. What can we start? What can we do? How can we reach out? You have to then begin to build a team of people around you that can compensate for your areas that are weak instead of you trying to major in the areas that you're not even gifted in. I can do administration. I'm not great at it, but I can do it. Do I see the importance of it? Oh, absolutely. That's administration's a ministry. But we we've had to build that up. So as we built our team, we have one pastor who's over, you know, we have different duties. And one of the pastors helps with all the facilities things. Now, if that pastor needs input, I'll give input, but I'm not breathing down their neck on anything. They're over discipleship. And in some of those areas I speak into those. But I don't I don't have the final say and I don't need to feel like I have to have the final say. Then we have another pastor whose gifting is more in the shepherding category. So she's building a system of care. She'll drive three hours to be in the hospital with you. That's not me. I'm not going to do that. But I see the importance of it. But that's how God has wired her up. So it's building that team. And when you go into more of an inherited church, a traditional church setting, it's breaking habits that people have of you, the expectations people have of the role. I'm not going to have open office hours. I can't think of any, you know, professional, like a, I can't just go in and see my doctor and barge in because they have open office hours or a dentist or a lawyer, you know, whatever it may be. So why in the world would the church expect me to do that when people aren't just going to come off the street because I have open office hours? So it's breaking some of those habits that people have, just like staff time in the building. I want my people to be out. And meeting people and get involved in intramural soccer. And this, because as they go, they're going to make disciples. So my philosophy, I'm low control. So here's here's my philosophy. High expectation, low control. So if you bring the right people on your team, you're not going to have to micromanage them. But congregations have been used to managing, micromanaging the religious paid professional. And saying, this is what you got to do. This is what we want you to do.

Dee Stokes: You preaching now, Dr. Roz. And you speaking my language because you know me, I think, long enough to know that I agree with everything you've said and what you have introduced to us today and to our listeners is really important in changing the mindset, I think, of church and empowering people to live into their spiritual gifts. I think it's extremely important. My team at Seeds, I know everyone's spiritual gifts. Remember, I made you guys do that. And Ephesians 4 tells us the fivefold ministry gifts. And you cannot have all evangelists. You cannot have all pastors. Lord knows you don't want all prophets, right? You'd never get any work done. And I think what you've said, really bravo to what you said, because really we need to change the mentality of how we run our churches and our expectations need to change. So I appreciate you saying that. High expectation, low management, don't look over people's shoulders. Everybody share the weight. If you're a healer, you should be the one going to the hospital, right? You don't want me come to the hospital if I'm not a healer, right? Yeah. Have the healer go to the hospital. So we appreciate that. Tell us a bit more about. I know you said you were a serial church planter. What does that mean?

Roz Picardo: Yeah, I like starting new things or revitalizing. And so that's the work that I've been engaged in for, you know, the past 17 years. And I didn't even know that's what God was calling me to do. I went to seminary to be a chaplain in the military. I didn't know that God was going to give me a burden for the local church. And in doing so, I just realized how how many times people want to come to church, but they don't have a place where they feel like they can belong. And why not create those kind of spaces for people? Now it's easier to give birth than to raise the dead, and so it's easier to birth something, but it's harder to have what we're talking about, these cultural shifts. And so if you're trying to shift a whole culture, it's not going to happen overnight. And so it's moving at the speed that God's calling you to move at. And it really depends on where that church is in its life cycle. If if it doesn't have much time left, you got to have to speed up the change. There are some pastors and leaders. They're not going to change anything in the first year. Will they have more time on the clock than that? So it really depends on where they are. And that really judges the speed in which they go. But I love creating new ministries and things. You just have to be careful that your vision doesn't outpace the capacity of the organization. And so I can't just continue to start things. I have to take things deeper. And now that I'm in a different season, I'm wanting to take things deeper than than I have at other places.

Terri Elton: So two things are coming through my mind. One is, I totally love the giftedness element and I'm an ELCA Lutheran, and I think you've met some of my colleagues, Dr. Dee. I wouldn't say we're heavy on the evangelism apostles, you know, kind of way and maybe more heavily on administration or some of those kinds of things, right? So how would you. So the first thing I want to ask is how do you push? Imagine that, if that's not, if you're the pastor, if you're the leader, right, or lay leader of a church, right, that has been tasked with some of this stuff, thinking through some of this stuff, how do you find those folks to be part of your team if that's not you? So let's go with that one and then I'll do the follow up.

Roz Picardo: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to, you know, something that John Wesley said, whose eyes are burning with fire when you're preaching or you're sharing? Those are the people that you go to. And so if you're a lay leader asking the pastor, who who are some of our passionate people that want to see something different taking place? And again, I think it's tapping into people's giftings and not being so tight fisted on this is the way we have to do it, but being more open handed that they're going to do things differently than you, they're going to have a different approach. But that's okay because God has uniquely gifted and wired people differently. And so I can't help but think that teamwork and building the team is one of the most crucial things you can do for any ministry. We see that in the church growth era and even up until this point where there's that one solo heroic leader and when they leave or, God forbid, have a moral failure, everything comes tumbling down. And I think God's doing something new where he's raising up instead of one person going to the mountaintop to receive the message, people are going as a group, as a team and saying, What does God have for us?

Terri Elton: I love that answer because I think in our networks, adjacent, not too far from where we are, there are probably folks that we could invite into this space, but then we got to get out of the way, right? You can't you can't do it all this way or it's not going to get you're going to get the same outcome, right?

Roz Picardo: Well, seminary teaches us to be generalist, so if we're a generalist, we do everything. So facilities, finances, worship, you know, and it's it's moving from that model to specialist. So what what am I uniquely gifted at? And how do we create a team around those gifts versus forcing somebody in a box that they don't even belong in?

Terri Elton: Totally. And so here's my follow up. So especially in thinking redevelopment, because I think I do appreciate what you said, birthing is easier than redevelopment where there's got to be death and letting go as you also kind of open up. And so I think about like you got to experiment the heck out of redevelopment. And I love what you said about the timeline. Say more about like if you were going to speak to some redevelopers, what would you say about those things? The timeline and just the need to experiment?

Roz Picardo: Yeah. So, you know, we're presented because we're United Methodist and we're one of the fastest growing churches. We get presented with opportunities of what I call adoptions. That sounds a whole lot nicer than takeovers. But if we're we're looking at doing something, I have that particular group or congregation start with breakthrough prayer. And so they're praying for months and they're getting trained in how to how to pray a prayer that is going to cause them to reach beyond themselves. It's up and out. Right. And also, it's important to have the congregation, you know, there's another tool called Readiness 360, which measures their aptitude for change to in order for a congregation to change or to be redeveloped, you have to acknowledge that something is wrong. And unless you state the current reality, people aren't going to know what's wrong. So I like to even plot or chart out for congregations, hey, based on this, you're giving is going to run out in a year or based on your decline and your death rate, you're not going to have anybody left in two years. And I would say you can't force change with people who don't want to change. But I find in every one of those churches, there's a good percentage that are willing to do whatever's necessary. And then there's those that are never going to be happy. The only time they're happy is when they're complaining. So who gets the majority of our attention? It's the vision squelchers instead of the vision catchers. And so we have to shift and say, all right, I'm going to devote my time to these vision catchers and work with them. And it's going through the community exegesis. It's going through, you know, kind of an assessment of what are we doing here? What do we have to offer the community? Because if 100 people were to come tomorrow, would we be ready to handle them? What are we inviting them into? There's a reason people aren't coming. So what are we inviting them into? If you don't have any ushers or greeters, you're acknowledging that You don't think anybody new is going to show up. If, you know, you could have a billboard that says "all are welcome," but until you know, if if people don't feel welcome, they're going to know within two minutes of being on your campus and setting foot there to realize, oh, I am welcomed here. So it's training your people and I call it getting your house in order before you open it up and start inviting the community and other things. You need to get that internal house in order.

Dee Stokes: Well, Roz, you're a visionary and we appreciate your vision for what the church, the big C Church, not just Mosaic should be. And so we appreciate you joining us today on Pivot podcast. And how can people reach you? Tell us how they can reach you.

Roz Picardo: Yeah, Rosario Picardo.com would be one way or email me at Roz Roz at we are mosaic.org and you can find my newest book on there: Dynamite Prayer: 28 Day Prayer Experiment. And we encourage people to even do the experiment. Thousands of churches, I guess, are using it and are seeing breakthroughs. So I think, again, for me, everything goes back to that prayer piece to undergird all that we're talking about.

Dee Stokes: Well, we appreciate you, Dr. Roz, and thank you, Terri.

Terri Elton: It's been great hearing more about your story. And I hope that these words inspire others. Next week in our Pivot podcast, we're going to go to another place in Ohio and see how a diocese actually is taking these ideas and putting them into practice. So stay tuned and join us again next week.

Faith+Lead: This episode of the Pivot podcast was brought to you by Faith Lead. If you enjoy today's show, head over to Faithlead. Org to gain access to a free resources. See you next time.