Scott Mozingo (ThM, 2004) and his wife, Ashley, call Greenville, South Carolina, home. It’s where they raised their three kids and hope to retire. It’s also where Scott has pastored for twenty-three years and counting. Scott started working at Grace Church right after his DTS graduation. Some of his friends, knowing he wanted to head back east, connected him with Matt Williams (ThM, 1995), founder and pastor of Grace Church. Matt needed a small groups pastor, and Scott fit the bill. Scott and his family left Dallas that May, Ashley moving sight unseen, along with their newborn twins—thrilled to embark on their newly graduated journey together. Serving as the Small Groups Pastor suited Scott; it allowed him to draw on the spiritual formation experiences developed at DTS. During his time at seminary, Scott served extensively with the Spiritual Formation department as an SF Fellow in addition to his activities with the Hendricks Center. Those experiences equipped Scott well for his newfound role. Serving as the small groups pastor allowed him to remain focused on something close to his heart—spiritual formation.
Over the years, Scott has occupied different roles. He’s moved from role to role—identifying a need, creating a position, stepping into that role to meet the need, and then training someone else to fill the position before identifying another unaddressed need. This has been Scott’s modus operandi at Grace Church as he seeks to cultivate a healthy church. He started as the Small Groups Pastor. When those small groups blossomed, he organized them into parishes. Those small-group parishes eventually grew into full-fledged congregations, and Grace Church became a multi-site church. He strove to ensure that as the church became a multi-site movement, they remained “a church of groups and not a church with groups.” Scott went on to serve as a campus pastor, then began leading the campus pastors. He extended pastoral care and discipleship to the church’s new campus pastors and the believers under their care. Then the explosion of the internet moved Scott into a brand-new role: Resource Creator and Content Director. Scott and his communications team crafted usable and adaptable resources. Regardless of his specific role, Scott has always made sure that spiritual formation remains a key part of his job description. Scott defines spiritual formation as “the process by which God grows us into the image of his Son through the Word, the Spirit, and biblical community.”
Six years ago, Scott noticed an uptick in church attendance. He also noticed that the church wasn’t doing much financial discipleship. They’d periodically talk about money or hold a seminar, but there wasn’t an intentional strategy toward stewardship; so, Scott engineered his new role: Pastor of Generosity. This role ushers the entire church into a conversation about formation—Why does God teach us to steward our resources well? That question is a spiritual formation question, and the answer is all about God conforming his children into the image of his Son (Rom 8:29). Scott discovered that the biggest issue wasn’t a lack of financial knowledge but rather a substantial gap that cut the concept of resources off from a biblical and spiritual understanding of the good gifts God gives. The church was missing the bigger picture. There was a focus on the gift and what to do with it rather than on the Giver.
At times, God’s children can overidentify with the Father’s good gifts rather than rooting their identity in the Father’s best gift, Christ. Consequently, they can fail to see God as the Giver. Those two factors lead to faulty stewardship models. When God’s children get distracted by his gifts and fail to recognize him as the Giver, they are tempted to put their chief enjoyment in his gifts. When they do this, those gifts eventually fail them. Recognizing God as the Giver leads to enjoyment and enjoyment rightly ordered—God first; gifts second.
As the Pastor of Generosity, Scott calls people to enjoy God and to live generously because of that enjoyment. He has spent the last six years drawing attention to this grander view, working across all ten of Grace Church’s campuses, resourcing staff members, shepherding financial leaders, and developing tools and resources that bolster financial discipleship by focusing on basic financial knowledge, benevolence, and generosity. Financial discipleship isn’t mainly about money but rather God’s purposes through money. God intended all sorts of things, including financial resources, to complement our identity in Christ. He encourages believers to see money as a catalyst for considering other areas where they are called to stewardship, including their body, time, or talents.
When it comes to spiritual formation, Scott is most excited about the life-change part. He loves seeing how God engages in all kinds of good gifts—our work, marriages, children, talents, and resources—to grow us more into Christ’s likeness. Through his role, Scott invites believers to enjoy God and to grow spiritually because of that enjoyment.