Our Story of
Through the wonder of Christ, we are like a mosaic. A broken, shattered people redeemed and brought together to display God’s beauty to one another and the world.
Our Lead Pastor, Renaut, worked in ministry from 1994 to 2002, pastoring middle school, high school, and college-age students. In 2002, he and his family moved to the Orlando area to plant a church. They didn’t know much about church planting, but they knew they wanted to plant one where any person, regardless of their current spiritual journey, could have an authentic experience with God through the gospel. So they started meeting people at the swimming pool in their neighborhood and at other local spots in the community. As they got to know people’s stories, they would share their own with them and the vision they had for this new church. By Easter Sunday of 2003, Mosaic had its first Sunday gathering.
During those first few years, our core group grew slowly, and little by little, we became more and more like a family, doing life together around Clermont in hundreds of little ways. It was during these years of living in a community and on mission together that the name Mosaic emerged. We wanted to capture what the church really was in a name. As you may know, the New Testament describes the church as a body with many parts; each part designed to play its role in making the body a masterpiece that brings glory to God. In our cultural context, we saw this same idea expressed in a mosaic. A mosaic is a bunch of broken pieces of tile or glass that any normal person would discard. However, in the hands of an artist, those broken pieces are carefully placed onto a surface, and before you know it, a beautiful piece of art emerges.
Over the next two years, we bounced around from place to place as God continued to refine us as a core community. We started in the Lord’s Gym aerobics room, then a small warehouse in Minneola, then a little place near Citrus Tower, then the old Real Life building on Hook Street for a bit, and then Family Christian Center on Highway 27 for two months. Church in a box for almost three years.
As God continued to grow our little family, we heard about a building in Oakland that would be put up for sale. Long story short, a family that does not live here in Florida, but believed deeply in Mosaic’s vision, called and said that they had signed a huge contract in their business and wondered if there was anything that we needed. We said we could use a million dollars in cash. Their response floored us. “I think we can do that.” Through this incredible gift, we were able to buy the building. In the next few months, we exchanged a piece of land that had been gifted to us for about $650,000 of the loan and paid the rest off in no time at all. God had simply handed us the space we needed to continue the ministry He had called us to.
Over the next several years, as we continued to grow and mature as a church family, we began to see that God was handing us an incredible story and an opportunity to make the Gospel known both locally and globally. Our vision became clear: We exist to demonstrate our passion for God and His passion for people.
To pursue that vision, we dived headfirst into local and global missional living. We decided that we would always serve at the cost of surviving and never survive at the cost of serving. We served in thousands of little and big ways locally: fixing cars for single moms; paying bills for families in need; making meals for those who were sick, expecting, or just struggling; helping people move in and move out of their homes; serving with local organizations in multiple social justice issues. We also took our first steps into serving globally, building relationships in the Republic of Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Ethiopia, China, and Cambodia.
As God continued to call us into the lives of people, our story expanded. We have a huge heart for the Disney community and discovered that it was tough for Cast Members and Disney College Program students to be consistently connected to a church because of the rhythms of the entertainment and service industry. So, in February of 2012, we launched our Disney Campus as a place where Cast Members and CPs could have an authentic experience with God on their schedule and in their context.
This has become a small campus with an incredibly prolific “sending” culture. Since its start, we have had the gift of seeing literally hundreds of incredibly talented and passionate people impacted by the gospel, taking its wonder and unique Kingdom culture with them on their ventures (often with Disney), sharing it with people all over the world.
In Easter of 2013, we launched a Mosaic Campus in the Winter Garden Theater in downtown Winter Garden as another opportunity to impact the city of Winter Garden. The Winter Garden Campus joined back with the Oakland Campus in January 2017 to prepare for moving to our new building together later in 2017. At this point, we found ourselves to be a pretty large church family that worshiped together with seven gatherings across two campuses. This was awesome—presenting new challenges but not changing our collective heart to demonstrate our passion for God and His passion for people.
In December of 2017, we moved into a new, larger building in Winter Garden. What was once an old, vacant Value Mart became our new home. We built out and refurbished the building portion we knew we immediately needed to welcome and care for our growing Mosaic family.
No matter how big or small we become, we dream of being a people passionate and vocal about the gospel; mature and devoted to Jesus; missional, connected, and full of the Spirit; and radical in the way we live and love for the glory of God.
As things have changed here over the years, we have had to learn and grow through it. We’ve had to develop new and creative ways to continue to provide spaces where people can be challenged and encouraged, grow a deep connection, and do life together as they abide in Jesus. The processes and programs are never perfect, but God remains faithful as He continues to lead us in the journey of becoming a healthy biblical community that reflects God’s kingdom in its diversity and unity.