So much of what comes out of the faith community seems so dour and somber, and we want to say, ‘Hey, we’re real people. You can be a person of faith and really enjoy life and laugh.’ – Erwin McManus
Religion as a whole specializes in sin management. It’s all about organizing humanity in such a way that we cause as little damage as possible. – Erwin McManus
While we would love to have no criticism, probably if we had no critique, we wouldn’t be doing anything meaningful. – Erwin McManus
The Bible has been trapped in modernity. Everything has to work perfectly. And if everything doesn’t fit in a Lego-oriented functionality, then we don’t deal with it as Christians. – Erwin McManus
If you come at the Bible as if it’s a document of encyclopedic information, you’ve pretty much killed any kind of life change in a seeker and unbeliever. – Erwin McManus
I think the exploration and the search for who Jesus is, and that 2,000 years later we’re still trying to figure out who He was, and did He really rise from the dead… And I think for me, the answer is ‘yes,’ and that’s why we’re talking about Him today. – Erwin McManus
I realize that I live on the bubble of insanity. I feel the weight of human suffering, loneliness and despair on me all the time. It’s not getting easier; if anything, it’s always right on the edge of my skin. – Erwin McManus
We want to help everyone find meaning in their life and help translate the story that each person actually matters in the world. – Erwin McManus
How many people just get up on Monday and do the same thing they’ve done every single Monday – go to work and just turn on route automatic and no longer have any meaning in their life? – Erwin McManus
I think many times Christians don’t really take the opportunity to hear what people are saying and seeing in the world around them. – Erwin McManus
I hope my greatest contribution will be to try to extract principles of truth that will cause us to live our lives in a more effective way and to advance Jesus’ purpose in the world. – Erwin McManus
I think that’s a part of what motivates me in my teaching and writing. Once the Gospel feels mainstream and becomes a nicely organized, orchestrated belief system, frankly, I don’t think there is even an attraction to the human spirit. – Erwin McManus
Our job is not to change people; our job is to connect people to Jesus, and it’s Jesus’ job to change people. – Erwin McManus
When we look at history, we see history is made up of the heroes of their times. Yet, somehow we miss this when we put on the lens of the Scriptures. – Erwin McManus
I think we’ve overstated that God is the God who wants us to obey. Obedience is not the end game. Obedience is only our calling so that we can step into our freedom. – Erwin McManus
We’re a part of the insurrection, trying to turn Christianity upside down. We’re an experimental church: God’s research and development arm. – Erwin McManus
I love what Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh and Jesus all said – that love is really the driving principle of the creative act. In fact, they would say that great art is always inspired by love. – Erwin McManus
I think we are all trying to figure out what it means to be the Church as opposed to just doing church. – Erwin McManus
We are constantly learning and growing and changing. We are really an experiment. We are endeavoring to discover if a community of faith can exist purely for the good of others. – Erwin McManus
I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I’m banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people. – Erwin McManus
I’ve worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I’ve led at Mosaic. – Erwin McManus
When researchers try to break down what is happening at Mosaic, far too often they see the skin and miss the heart. – Erwin McManus
The Bible is not an antiquated text. The scriptures are the text that will lead us into the future. – Erwin McManus
My primary assessment would be because American Christians tend to be incredibly self-indulgent, so they see the church as a place there for them to meet their needs and to express faith in a way that is meaningful for them. – Erwin McManus
I think the opportunity to bring together the people in the world of politics, business and entertainment and have an opportunity to listen to their best learning and thinking is a great opportunity. – Erwin McManus
I have an incredible confidence in the resilience of the human spirit and the creative ability of the Holy Spirit. So, if you can get people asking the right questions, it really will start moving in the right direction. – Erwin McManus
We focus, in some ways, on how to disengage Jesus and the Bible from everything people know about Christianity as a religion. – Erwin McManus
One trend I see is the rejection of growth for self-discovery and the pursuit of authentic community. So we keep whittling our spiritual community to a smaller and smaller and more exclusive inner circle. The problem is if the diagnoses are wrong, so will be the cure. – Erwin McManus
From the beginning, our community has been focused on people outside of Christianity. But that emphasis means that a lot of hard work is represented in every person who is baptized. – Erwin McManus
