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Erwin McManus



“ There is something inside of this humanity that says 'God is holding out on us, he is keeping something from us. There must be an adventure or life, there must be something so extraodinary that can be found if I just eat of the other tree because God is just trying to limit my experience. God is trying to limit my pleasure. God is trying to limit my life.' [Genesis 2:15-17,3:1-8] They didn't really believe that the prison was in the choice of moving away from the presence of God, and that freedom and liberty and adventure in life is in the presence of God. ”

“ When I worked among the urban poor I had a definition of wholeness, it was 51%. I thought 'Hey if I could get people to give 51 percent and take 49 we will be doing really well.' Because I thought to myself that's a huge goal for me. If I could just give 2% more than I take, I have made a huge adjustment in my life. Because let's be really honest, without Jesus Christ most of us are just consumers. We see human relationships for what we can get... We find nice spiritual relational language to justify our own consumer mentality. ”

“ I began discovering that foolishness was fundamentally an improper connection between cause and effect (which is also superstition) and that a lot of wisdom is just connecting the dots. ”
Character Matrix
August 8, 2003
“ The bottom line is it far more important to change what people care about than it is to change what they believe. Now I know that may seem like heresy but the reality is that there are things you can believe without caring about them. But you cannot care about something without believing in it... What happens is when you live in the Christian context you just assume that people care about the same things you care about. ”
Get Real With Leadership
June 11, 2004...
Speaking to MP3 Culture
October 18, 2004
“ If you do not do what he says your heart will become hard and your ears will become dull and his voice will become silent to you. And there will be a day if you choose not to treasure his voice that you will not even remember hearing the voice of God, and you will deny that God even speaks. But if you treasure his voice and respond to his spirit you will have an intimate conversation with God all of your life. [Hebrews 3:7-19] ”
Get Real With Leadership
June 11, 2004
[Acts 17:16] “ One of the things that we have to continually remind ourselves, in our own context at Mosaic, is that if we not distressed that people are worshiping the wrong god then we'll never pay the price to effectively communicate Jesus in the world in which we live. And really, isn't a burden for people the driving motivation for communicating effectively? ”

“ We need to make sure that we stop traveling down the paved roads. Have you noticed how we all have all the same exact answers to all the same questions? I don't know where people without Christ get it but they have a manual, and they all ask the same questions. But you know why they do that? It's also because they know our stupid thoughtless shallow narrow minded answers... You know what it is, a lot of us have this huge target on our foreheads that says ask me I'm stupid. I will give you the same exact answer that every other Christian will give you without thinking it through... You need to stay off the paved road. If you've heard the answer a thousand times think through it again. ”

[Matthew 14:22-33] “ There are things you can see that exist in the invisible when you step out and begin to walk with Christ. Is it possible that certain things are invisible when you are not moving at the rate of speed that God is moving? ”

“ I think we need to be willing to take the long journey home. We need to stop arguing with people through the format of boxing and start using Tae Kwon Do. Stop blocking their shots and punching back. We need to take the full weight of their argument and just go on their journey with them and let it take us to its natural conclusion. And you know what is going to surprise you? You think God and his truth is just over here and if you go down the journey with them you are going to move further from the truth. But what you are going to find is if you go down their road it's going to sort of meander all the way back around because their truth is not truth and it will find it's way back to God. That's why Paul could begin with a statue to the 'unknown god' and know it would lead him all the way back to Jesus. ” [Acts 17:22-31]
Speaking to MP3 Culture
October 18, 2004
“ You cannot effectively recruit people to something that isn't more significant than the life they're living right now. ”

[1SA 17:1-27] “ The movement of Jesus Christ has been crippled... because we are oftentimes more moved by people who are being paid to advance the gospel than those who are passionate to advance the gospel. Now everyone else was impressed by what the king would give them if they killed Goliath. None of that impressed David. What made David mad was that the name of God was being defiled and the purpose of God was not being advanced. I think the problem is we depend on people who are at all being paid. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have people who are paid, but what I am saying is if a person is doing his job because he's paid, he's the wrong person doing the job. Because you cannot recruit volunteers unless people sense from your gut and your core that you would do this nomatter what. ”

“ The first risk if you start calling out volunteers is that you'll get them. The second risk is you're going to get people you didn't want. ” [1SA 17:28-29]

[ACTS 6:1-4] “ We can't possibly do what God created us to do if we do this other thing. And so many times this whole issue of a volunteer revolution just comes down to God's actually at work and you can't possibly do it all. The only possibility that you do not need to expand your volunteer base is that nothings happening. ”

“ We let the church drift to become and institution, a relic of things once great, because our kids are in college and we have to pay the bills. But that volunteer, they're not getting paid by the church. You get them fired up about God and they will face anyone. You get them with that fire in their eyes that the world needs Jesus Christ and the church shouldn't even exist unless she fulfills God's heart. That volunteer becomes absolutely dangerous. And that is the volunteer that will watch your back when you enter into the battle and fight for the heart of God at the core of the church. ”

“ I think that you and me, we're going to be ok if we look back at our lives and go 'Yeah, I wasn't really all that good. I did everything I could just not to bore the masses. But man, you should see what they did. And I had a small part of that. I created an environment where people's dreams and visions could be unlocked.' ”

“ I've been studying churches for over 20 years and I have found one consistant characteristic of growing churches, or actually two. Every growing church has immorality and heresy. And in fact when you say you want to be a New Testament church, which one? Corinth? Galatia? And we act like it's so terrible... You do get quality control issues because whenever you open up to people on a broad level you get human shrapnel, because people are a mess. But what I find in the scriptures is that the solution is to actually call people to the mission of Christ, because it's the mission that actually fixes heresy and fixes immorality. Instead of trying to be legalistic and creating all these doctrinal programs to make sure everybody believes all the right stuff, just tell them "Read the Bible, follow Jesus, love people" and I guarantee you this stuff will begin to push away.”
A Volunteer Revolution
October 29, 2004
“ A lot of us think that a white lie hurts less than the hard truth, but it's just not true. See human beings are created for truth. We're designed to resonate with truth. And when we live in falsehood our souls get sick. Truth isn't just about being right and wrong, truth is about being healthy and whole. ”

“ Every human being is on a search for meaning, and what we want to do is we want to download the journey before they even take the first step. But you can't be afraid of the questions. You just can't. ”

“ [Journalists asked me:] 'What about this whole thing of intelligent design not being allowed in schools?' Oh, that's real simple. See in the sixties, most of the professors at universities were conservatives. And if there's one thing I know about young people it's that they will rebel against 'the institution'. They will defy 'the man'. And so you get all these conservative institutions where the brightest and best minds in America were liberals. And now all the universities are essentially facultied by liberals. And some of the brightest and sharpest minds across America are conservatives. You see whatever you put in the institution you're going to have revolution. So just go ahead. Only teach evolution. Let them hear that there's another option out there, but it's banned. You are creating the context for a revolution of intelligent design and these 17 year olds are going 'I don't care if you say I cannot study this. I'm going to get one, and I'm going to figure this thing out on my own.' ”
Postmoderns
October 13, 2005
“ When given the opportunity God always chooses the path of forgiveness. You see, the intersection between you and God is not supposed to be an encounter where you experience the wrath and judgment and condemnation of God. But here is the difficulty, God gives you the right to choose. And if you do not choose the path of forgiveness what is a Holy God to do with you? ”

“ When a person looked at me and said 'I'm sinless', you know what I told them? Well then Jesus didn't come for you. It's not my job to make them honest. When they looked at me and said 'Hey, I don't have any sin' well then Jesus didn't come to you because Jesus only came for sinners. And I said you're doing better than me because I sinned really early, I blew this thing at a very young age, I'm a prodigy I started sinning right away. But you are spectacular [but] there might come a day, you might live long enough where you blow it, where you sin. On that day, Jesus came for you. You don't have to spend your life convincing people that they're sinners. Just go find people who know that they're sinners and convince them there's hope, and that God's not their enemy, that God is the way to life. ” [John 8:10-11]
God Walked Among Us
Jesus in the Sand
April 18, 2004
“ But there is something wrong where our [the church's] best community isolates the outsider. Real community creates inclusivity, warmth, accessibility, love, compassion, friendship for the person furthest out. Not simply for the person furthest in. ”

“ Where God is not, is not sacred, no matter how much stained glass and how much care you've taken to make it look religious. But anywhere where God is, is sacred, no matter how much Jim Beam and Jack Daniels surround the room. Jesus left the temple, and the Pharisees and religious leaders never even noticed that God was gone. Wherever Jesus goes, that is holy ground. ” [Matthew 21:14-17]
God Walked Among Us
Jesus in the Temple
April 25, 2004
“ Whatever is on your heart, what God is saying to you, the moment you understand it - that is the moment you are supposed to act on it, not later. That moment. ” [James 4:17]
God Walked Among Us
Jesus in the Garden
May 23, 2004
“ What you find here in this brief conversation is Cain new exactly what to do he just chose not to do the right thing. Which I think says a lot more about us than we think. I think the reason there are so many religions in the world is not because God has left it so confusing. I think it's because in the end we want God to meet us on our standards, not us meet God on his. ” [Genesis 4:7, Deuteronomy 30:11-14]
Counter Culture
Cain
June 12, 2005
“ I know sometimes that this book [the Bible] seems really big. But if you think about it, if this is the primary document of God's conversation with humanity it's really small. So every line, every verse, every space, every word would be so important. ”
Advance
Go Unless You Get a No
March 19, 2006
“ If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you have to pursue truth wherever it takes you. You just can't be afraid of the questions. ”

“ You know what's so funny? We want our freewill but we don't want to live with the consequences of our choices, do we? You see, get mad at God because He didn't make you a puppet. If you want a reason to get mad at God, get mad at God because He gave you the right to choose and you're probably not responsible enough to choose, and neither am I. See we can't get mad at God because He created us thinking creative beings, and then we make destructive choices and we can't be ticked off at God because we made destructive choices. ” [Proverbs 19:3]
Life's Toughest Questions
Does God Care?
September 10, 2006
“ What we worship affects what we become. ” [Romans 1:23-25 (really RO 1:18-32)]
Life's Toughest Questions
What about sex?
September 24, 2006
“ When you look at the backdrop of human history and religion you have to basically categorize religion into two categories: they are either legalistic or fatalistic. See, either religions say look, God is aloof or they say God is impersonal. And so sometimes God is aloof and that leads to legalism. And so then you have all these rules and all these rituals and all this criteria that you have to live up to and strive toward so that God might accept you into His kingdom. And the message of Jesus is different than [both of these]. And the other one is essentially fatalism that says, really, you have no control over your destiny. It's all mapped out, it's all prepackaged, it's all preplanned, and you have an illusion, a perception of freedom and choice but the truth of the mater is that you don't really get to choose, it's all set into order. And what you find is that those two different views inform world religions... You [must] choose between legalism (Islam, Buddhism) and love, fatalism (Humanism, Universalism, Buddhism, Calvinism) and freedom. ”

[John 14:6] “ You say 'Well why does Jesus say he is the only way?' He's not giving you the bad new from His perspective, He's giving you the bad news from reality. He's saying no one else is coming for you. There is no other God who loves you and passionately pursues you and longs to forgive you of your sin and to heal you from your brokenness. So choose life because the Lord is your life. ” [Colossians 3:4]
Life's Toughest Questions
Is Jesus the Only Way?
October 1, 2006
[Acts 17:26-27] “ What the scriptures tell us is that God has strategically given every person the time and place where they should live so they would have the optimal opportunity to come to Him. I know it's hard for us to believe that a person might have a better chance of finding God as a [for example] Muslim or a Hindu than as a [for example] Presbyterian or a Baptist. But I have met enough Presbyterians and Baptists to know that there are people who are Buddhist and Hindu who are closer on their journey to finding God than the others. ”

“ If you don't want to believe, nothing in the world is going to overcome your doubt. ”
Life's Toughest Questions
Is Faith Nonsense?
October 8, 2006
[Genesis 18:23-25] “ I think many times life's toughest questions are crafted around our misunderstanding of who God is. Or our perception that somehow God is not more loving or more holy or more compassionate or more just than we are. ”
Life's Toughest Questions
Is God in your future?
October 15, 2006
“ I think sometimes the way it's experienced [by non believers] is almost like Christians want to say 'This is the only way because we want to be right and we want everyone else to be wrong'... And what Jesus is saying is there's no one else that loves you like this. You can make up all the gods you want but you'd better check and see if that god is proactively pursuing you with their love. ”
Life's Toughest Questions
Recap
October 29, 2006
[Matthew 4:1-4] “ Just read the Bible and all your hunger goes away. Well only of course if you eat the Bible, then your hunger starts going away. You see what Jesus was not doing was spiritualizing this question, this temptation, this struggle. I mean a lot of times we read the Bible and we spiritualize everything and it really doesn't mean anything to us. What Jesus was not saying is 'I don't need food, I have the word of God.' That's not what He was saying, He wasn't saying 'oh just sit down and read'. What Jesus was telling the evil one is you don't understand the dynamic of what actually satisfies the human soul. It's not the bread that meets our needs, it's that God has given that bread the capacity to satisfy our hunger. It's not water that quenches our thirst it's that God has spoken and given water the capacity to quench our thirst. ”
Soul Cravings
Crave
January 28, 2007
“ What an amazing thing that John sees about love. [1 John 4:18] Perfect love casts out all fear. Love drives fear out of your life. Which makes more interesting the phrase in the scriptures that says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of knowledge. [Proverbs 1:7] But you're going 'Wait wait a minute, perfect love casts out all fear but we are supposed to fear God?' Well you see, what you fear establishes the boundaries/​parameters of your freedom... And fear can connect you to very cruel masters... And with God it is different. You see when you focus all your fear to God then God in His perfect love casts out all fear. He is the only one when you focus your fear on Him He doesn't hold you in a cage to that fear but He liberates you to live free with Him... I think I should make this note, fear is not a bad thing. Sometimes the best thing to feel is fear, it's different than living under the control of fear. ”
Soul Cravings
Intimacy Function
February 11, 2007
“ Sometimes we put way too much pressure on each other to be everything. Don't do that to your job. I meet so many people who are so unhappy in their jobs. It's not your job it's you. That's why every time you change jobs you find the same problems because you brought them, the problems weren't there before you got there. You go 'I hate my job'. No you hate your life, get it right. It's worse than you think. Your job just reflects your life because your job isn't supposed to meet the deepest longings of your soul. And so you have some goals and some ambitions and the best thing that could happen to you is don't accomplish them because at least you can still live with the mirage, the illusion that if I could just attain that, then my life will be fulfilled. The worst thing that can happen to you is you get it and you realize it's been all a waste. It's not that it's not good to do exciting and wonderful and significant things, it's that they can't take the place of God in your soul. Because your soul craves [Him]. ”
Soul Cravings
Seek
March 18, 2007
“ What brings you freedom is not the freedom to chose. It's the choices you make in freedom that determine whether you will be free. Just because you are free to make choices doesn't mean you are going to live a free life. There are some of you here tonight, and even in the early stages of your life you have already made choices that have cost you so much freedom. Choices that at one time you chose but now they own you. And if you were to be measured and described by some geopolitical definition you would be the most free person in the world. But you know more than anyone else how far your experience and existence is from being free. ”
Intersections
Life is Short...
January 13, 2008
“ Sometimes what happens is we tend to sanitize the scriptures. And we forget really what's going on. ”
Intersections
Joy
February 3, 2008
“ You don't have to become enemies once you disagree and see the world differently. And after it was over this young businessman... came to me and said 'I am strangely compelled by your message of Jesus... I am so very much attracted to this philosophy, this teaching, but I have this question that just demands to be answered, it doesn't make sense to me.' And I said what's that? And he said 'If this Jesus that you are presenting tonight is real, this is the Jesus that is true, how do you explain that every Christian I have ever met is dogmatic, judgmental and condemning?' And once again I just felt so sad, and I was so grateful that he didn't put me in that category that day and I felt that was a huge win... And I said 'You know those people you met that were dogmatic, judgmental and condemning and they were Christians?' He said yeah, and I go 'Well they were just dogmatic, judgmental and condemning people who happened to be Christians. But if they had been Buddhist or Muslims or atheists they would have been dogmatic, judgmental and condemning people. It just happens to be who they chose to be and then they added Jesus. It's not Jesus who makes you like that. It's that we try to bring Jesus into that.' ”
Intersections
Coming Soon to Judge
February 10, 2008
“ And while it was true that poverty has the symptoms and the realities of lack of food and lack of clothing and lack of shelter, those pale in comparison to the poverty of lack of opportunity. And even that is diminished when you begin to discover that one of the things that is lost in the midst of poverty is the capacity to imagine a different life, a different world. And there is a poverty of dreaming that brought such despair and hopelessness. ”
Slavery and Freedom
February 17, 2008
“ Stop making decisions based on what's right and wrong, make decisions on what is most noble. ”
Vital Signs
Recalibrate Your Priorities
April 13, 2008
“ All healing in this life is temporary. And it's a part of this bigger picture of what God is doing in the world. But I want you to see also with me that what we find from Jesus in this moment is that God would never use rules, as an excuse to avoid compassion. That God would never use religion as an excuse to not do the most good. In fact, you wonder what was unexplainable, follow the story with me and listen to the comedy of this, alright. Cause sometimes we read the Bible and we just know the story but listen to the comedy... [John 5:1-15, the Pharisees criticize a man who's been lame for decades but healed by Jesus on a Saturday and walking home, carrying his mat. Their response is essentially] 'Its the Sabbath, how in the world are you up walking? You were the paralyzed guy. I've seen you for 38 years, always there. Were you faking?' Thirty-eight years! And all they are focused on is the guy picked up his mat on the Sabbath because their stupid, meaningless, insignificant rule said you shouldn't do that. Because this is what it means to be holy, to be religious, so they're more focused on the fact that the guy picked up his mat than the fact that he could pick up his mat, much less pickup himself... And what's happening here is the religious leaders have been using the rules of God, the commands of God, the guidelines and the insights as an excuse from doing the most good. And for some reason along the way we begin to think that God gives us commands just to control us... and we tend to think of God as this ominous puppeteer trying to control your life, to diminish your freedom and pleasure and enjoyment. And what we find here is in fact the opposite. It's that God has never given us a command to diminish our freedom but to actually accentuate it. God has never given a command to control us, but to liberate us, to free us. So it wasn't a problem at all for Jesus to tell the guy on the Sabbath 'You're healed, get up and walk home'. But for some strange reason we become more concerned with the rules and the rituals than we do with the people. It's the only way you can explain even what's happening in the church all over the world. It's a harsh thing to say but when I talk to spiritual leaders I tell them 'Look, you guys chose to keep your rituals and loose your children.' See the truth of the mater is a lot of us love our traditions more than we love our families. And people always ask me 'well why do you guys do what you do at Mosaic' and I go 'it's because we actually love people more. We just care more about our kids, we care more about our friends, we care more about our city than we care about our stupid traditions and rituals and the way we've done things'... And what we find here is Jesus is reminding us what God's priorities are, where His heart is. ”

“ You never need to protect yourself from doing more good. And I think so many times the question we ask is 'well should I do this or this?' And I go 'I don't know, just do the most good you can, and see how that works out for you.' ”
Unexplainable
Jesus Power Over Disease
May 31, 2009
“ I remember years ago this intern in our community said it this way: Sunday is just a commercial for what happens the rest of the week at Mosaic. ”

[Matthew 18:19-20] “ This faith journey that you're on, it's not just for you. Yes it needs to be personal but it's not supposed to be private... There's a part of your relationship with God you can only experience alone and it's really important to have that. But there's a part of your relationship with God that only happens together. ”

“ I think sometimes we forget that no matter how much power, no matter how much wealth, no matter how much success, no matter how much notoriety a person has their soul is still desperately searching for God. ”
Fresh Start
F.S. for Mosaic
January 24, 2010
“ I think wisdom is the integration of a life lived around the true, the good and the beautiful. ”

[2 Corinthians 3:6] “ I meet a lot of people who come to church and go 'I just want to go deep.' That's common Christian vernacular. 'I want to go deep in the word.' What does that mean? It's not that thick, you've got to be very cramped in there going deep. You know what I find? You see we pretend that we are followers of Jesus but we're actually followers of John Locke. We think that knowledge makes us better. It just makes us more arrogant. And so whenever I hear people say 'I want to go deep in the scriptures' they usually mean 'I want to be in this Bible study where we break down the words and go into the Greek and the Hebrew and we can just know more and know more.' The scriptures never talk about deep like that. That's called shallow. Deep is when you allow your soul to be absolutely permeated by the presence of God. Deep is when you allow truth to change and transform you, to make you good, and to produce the beautiful from your life. ”
Reality Check
Too Smart for Your Own Good
March 14, 2010
[Genesis 3:19] “ [God] says look, you came from dust, you're going to go back to dust because this is the consequence of the severing of your relationship with me. He's not saying this is the way it's supposed to be. He's saying this is what's going to happen. You're going to live in this trap of time that was never supposed to be a prison for you, it was supposed to be a playground. But because you have walked away from me the playground turns into a prison and you're trapped in time. ”
Reality Check
Is This All There Is?
April 11, 2010
[Ecclesiastes 5:1-2] “ Don't think that some ritual or some routine or some religious activity is going to actually connect you to God, because that's the sacrifice of a fool. The sacrifice of a fool is playing religion with one hand and then just living an [ungodly life] with the other hand and thinking somehow that God isn't going to see what's really inside of your soul. ”
Reality Check
Playing God
April 25, 2010
[Ecclesiastes 9:14-15] “ There's a sense in all of us that whenever life seems to be bigger than us that we just feel like people have a misperception of who we are. And so sometimes we try to compensate by acting really arrogant and acting really narcissistic and acting like we have it all together and hoping that people will buy into the propaganda of who we are. But when we're alone by ourselves we're scared to death to get found out. And the only way possible you could ever stay in that place where you think you're all that, when you think you're the biggest thing on this planet, is when you're living a life so small that you are big because your life is so insignificant. We seem to have a choice. We can either live insignificant lives and lose our significance or we can pursue significance and feel insignificant in the pursuit. Because the moment you pursue a God sized dream, the moment you begin to allow God to expand what your life can become, the moment you begin to own the sense that every one of us are to live a life that actually matters and actually counts you're going to feel an incredible sense of insignificance. You're going to go 'Why in the world God, would you want to do that with me? How in the world could you think I'm capable of that?' And you see this over and over in the scriptures, people who once they are confronted by God no longer feel like they are God. ”
Reality Check
Making Your Life Count
May 2, 2010
“ There are some people who are just trying to find the idea that will free them from work completely, not realizing that the most wonderful exciting invigorating thing in life is to have an idea that works, not an idea that frees you from work. That the goal in life isn't to get out of work but to get everything out of work that you're supposed to get out of it. And I know it doesn't sound like a really exciting virtue, but probably the most defining virtue that will separate you from other people is your commitment to work hard. ” [Ecclesiastes 11:6]

“ Eventually hard work gets mistaken for talent and if you're really fortunate hard work will get mistaken for genius. But strangely enough if you don't work hard no matter how talented or gifted or brilliant you are, all that talent will simply be mistaken for potential. ” (Note that he's not being pessimistic and saying all talent is an illusion but rather he's just making a comment about hard work.)
Reality Check
Live Like It Matters
May 16, 2010
“ I don't like it when Christians say 'well I can convert him/​her.' That's really dishonoring that other person. And then you marry someone and you say 'eventually I'll convert them.' What you're really saying is 'I'm marrying you, but not for who you are, I'm marrying you for who I can eventually manipulate you to become'... That's not what a marriage should be built on. ” [2 Corinthians 6:14]

“ The way you can circumvent the process is you can start having sex. Because having sex gives you the false perception that you've now moved to intimacy. It gives the woman a sense of intimacy and it give the guy a way out of intimacy. But... once you start having sex before marriage the level of intimacy, true intimacy that you have, is pretty much as far as you're going to go no matter how long you're together and even if you marry. Because you basically have stunted the relationship at that level of intimacy. And so what's going on here is that a lot of you are pretending to move toward real relationship by having sex. And when people ask me who could you marry, I tell them marry the person you can talk to all night without ever needing to have sex to have intimacy. ”
Romance Unwrapped
April 22, 2007
“ Pursue your dreams, but pay the bills... because you gotta do both. ”
Romance Unwrapped
May 6, 2007
“ Sometimes we think we're genious just because we can see the problem... It doesn't take genious to critique someone's best effort and say it's not enough. ”

“ All you have to do to be seen as a heretic is just to see things clearly. ” (Remember, Copernicus was regarded as a heretic.)
Heroes & Villains
Annonymous Boy
August 1, 2010
“ What ends up happening is you have this very pure, simple, elegant faith. And then over time people start attaching things to it, and that's called religion. And when we attach religion to it, it becomes cumbersome and weighty and burdensome, and before you know it even that core pure authentic faith at the center is lost. Because the religion just consumes it and overwhelms it, sometimes even destroys it. And given the best case scenario I don't think we add things because we're tying to be malevolent or malicious or destructive. I think what happens is there's this pure thing, this beautiful thing, this authentic true thing, described as faith, and this connection that happens to God through Jesus Christ. And then people feel responsible or they feel a stewardship for it. And so they start attaching things to make sure the pure thing isn't violated, isn't diluted, or in any way harmed. Not realizing that pure, elegant, authentic faith is the most powerful thing the universe has ever experienced and it doesn't need to be protected by religion. ”

[Acts 2:36-39] “ The word 'baptismo' means to be immersed, to be drenched, in a sense to be drowned, to be consumed, enveloped. But the church had moved to sprinkling and they were now sprinkling infants and so the word baptism created a huge cultural dilemma because they no longer taught people that the process, the symbolism was a water grave, that it was life and death and resurrection. And so rather than create a cultural, theological controversy they didn't translate the word 'immersion' they simply translated the word 'baptism.' ”
Essentials
Baptism
November 21, 2010
“ Any faith that is not rooted in truth is not a faith worthy of your life. ”
Truth Between Us
Atheism
October 1, 2011
“ It's [one thing to] disagree about ideas and it's still possible to care about each other as human beings. ”
Truth Between Us
Scientology
October 15, 2011
“ What you find is that so many religious systems and religious doctrines are created to try to leverage God out of a fear that He is less compassionate and less merciful than us. And so baptism became the Christian version of circumsision, hoping that baptism would wash away our original sin that we were told was passed on to us through this damaged state from Adam to us, rather than believe that the grace and mercy of God is the ultimate protection, not a ritual, but God's compassion and His character. ”
Truth Between Us
Catholicism
October 20, 2011




Ken Ham




“ If there really was a worldwide flood then what would the evidence be? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. ”
(Many sources)
“ If a skeptic were to approach the average Christian today and ask questions like: Where did the Bible come from? How do you know it's the Word of God? Where did God come from? How did Noah get all the animals on the Ark? How do you fit dinosaurs with the Bible? If we all go back to Adam and Eve, where did Cain get his wife? I suggest that most Christians would not have answers to these and many other basic questions. These are just some of the questions that are thrown at Christians today to intimidate them, because the humanists know most Christians can't answer them. God's people have been so evolutionized that they just ignore these questions and tell people to just trust in Jesus. But these are the questions that need to be answered to show we can defend God's Word. ” [1 Peter 3:15]
[1 Chronicles 12:32] “ One of the things we need to be doing and you'll see it at the Creation Museum, we help people understand this is real history. This is true. And the boat didn't look like some overloaded bathtub with giraffes sticking out the chimney. I also said to [this Sunday school teacher] it's one thing to teach kids Noah's flood happened but do you understand the times to prepare them for the world? ”
The Relevance of Genesis
“ It's designed to do what it does do. What it does do it does do well. Doesn't it? Yes it does. I think it does. Do you? ”
(Regarding the evidence of intelligent design in all animals)
“ You may not believe the Bible but I do... I don't use evidence to prove the Bible, I'm going to use the Bible as a starting point and show the evidence fits. ”




Craig Groeschel




“ One of the most dangerous things that we can do as parents is expose our children to just a little bit of God... (Consider how the flu vaccine works.) I would argue that as parents so many of us unknowingly give their children just a little bit of the things of God, making them immune to all of His goodness and glory and power and majesty. They find themselves knowing just a little bit about God but not knowing God personally and intimately in a life changing way. ” [Matthew 22:36-40]
Parenting
(wk 1)
“ What you believe determines how you behave. ”

“ People just instinctively reject Jesus because Christians have been about all truth and very little or no grace... And truth without grace leads to legalism and judgmentalism. But then there's the flip side and that's the mindset of the world today and that's relativism and subjectivism. And that is all grace and no truth... But when Jesus came he came for grace and truth [John 1:14,17 NIV] and when you seek Jesus and you experience grace and truth He is life changing. ”
Tru(ish)
(wk 1)
“ Although it is politically incorrect and incredibly unpopular and I just put myself in a corner by saying this where people all over the world will criticize me and hate me, I believe if there was any other way to God besides Jesus then there would have been absolutely no reason for His birth, His sinless life, His death on the cross, His resurrection and His ascension. And those who knew Him and saw it died the death of a martyr because they realized that He is the way and the truth and the life [John 14:6] and there is no other name by which a person can be saved [Acts 4:12] besides the glorious and matchless name of God's son Jesus Christ. By that I stand and would give my life to forever. ”
So You're Dead... Now What
(wk 4)
Let's build a quick foundation as we ask ourselves 'what is the church?' It's many things but we'll look at three to build a foundation today.
  1. The church is a community of believers. It is not a building, it is a people (Acts 2:42)...
  2. The church is called to be outwardly focused. We are a community that does not exist for itself but for those outside of the community (Matthew 28:19)...
    The church does not exist for us! If we are believers in Christ, we are the church and we exist for the world...
  3. The church's message never changes, but it's methods must change (Hebrews 13:8). [Acts 13:41] ”
To reach people nobody is reaching you've got to do things nobody is doing. ”
Behind the Curtain
(wk 1)
We can do far more for the kingdom of God together than we can apart. We can do infinitely more to reach people and minister to [them] when we partner with churches around the world than when we try to do it alone (Ephesians 4:3-6). ”
Behind the Curtain
(wk 2)
“ Our sexuality is Satan's easiest door to [our] shame... Shame leads to wrong thinking, which leads to wrong doing, which leads to destruction... Guilt makes us realize 'I did a bad thing' but shame makes us think 'I am a bad person'... There are things that only grow in the dark: fungus, mold, shame... ”
Satan's Sex Ed
(wk 1)
“ We agree to do anything short of sin to reach people who do not know Christ. We want to err on the side of being aggressive rather than err on the side of being passive or conservative. Why is that? Because we do not believe that the church exists for us. We believe that we are the church and we exist for the world. ” [1 Corinthians 9:19]

“ My vision for your campus/​network church is you would be so generous and so godly and so different that even people in your community that don't agree with our faith and say 'we don't know about that Jesus thing, but at least these people take it seriously and they are generous and they are different and they're making a difference in the community.' Because when you show people love and when you serve them and when you're generous, it's hard to hate someone who's serving you. And so when you show them the love of Jesus it brings credibility to the message of Jesus. [1 Peter 2:12,15] ”
Unstoppable
(wk 2: partners)
[Acts 4:13] “ Today's system is all messed up. Think about the church world today. You go and look in any Christian magazine for ministry and you look in the back and there's little advertisements and you can look for want adds for senior pastors. 'Our church is looking for a senior pastor' and then they list the qualifications. Here's what you're going to see almost every single time. They're going to ask for a senior pastor who's been in ministry for at least 10 years, is married and has a seminary degree. Which when you think about it what that says is Jesus Christ the Son of God could not be the pastor of most churches in our country! Think about it, He's not qualified. Jesus, the Son of God, is not qualified by man's system. Man is looking for people who fit into the world's system, God is looking for idiots [who believe Him at His word]. ”
Unstoppable
(wk 3: idiots)
[Luke 5:29-30] “ Whenever you befriend sinners you always offend Pharisees. ”

“ Don't tell me this church is too big. As long as there's one lost person or one hurting person in the community in which we live this place is not too big. Don't get selfish Christianity all over you. You want a small church?... Just don't love your small church so much that you don't ever reach anybody for Christ so your church can stay small. You [should] have a vision to reach out to people. The church is never, ever too big when there are people who do not know Christ. We are not spiritual consumers, we are spiritual contributors. We are the church and we are here for the world. ”
XV




Voddie Baucham




“ Many home school families will start school on the same day that the government sends kids back to school. You ought to start a week later just on general principal. ”
Family Driven Faith
“ The abortion debate in the United States and around the world has virtually nothing to do with life. It has to do with feminism. Here's what I want you to get. As the feminist movement grows and we move toward egalitarianism we're erasing the distinctions between men and women. Remember that's what we're talking about here. The reason we're having a problem with biblical manhood [Ephesians 5:23, 1 Peter 3:7] is we don't understand the lines of distinction between men and women. But as you erase the lines of distinction between men and women there's one little pesky issue that's always there. That's this little thing called pregnancy. So on the one hand we keep saying "There's no difference between men and women. There's just not a difference. We're the same, we can have the same pursuits, the same goals, the same everything. And that one little pesky thing keeps popping up. It's pregnancy. So if you want complete egalitarianism and for a woman to be able to define herself in a way that is completely the same as that of a man there's one thing you have to be able to do. And that is control and eliminate pregnancy and child bearing. That's what abortion is about, it's about feminism.

By the way, the abortion debate, not a hard debate. It's really not. But have you noticed this? Even when so called conservatives are debating on abortion here's what they don't do. (It's platitudes.) One person has this statement over here, here's his platitude: "Well I believe in a woman's right to choose." And then there's another person on the other side. What's the other person on the other side say? "Well I believe in the sanctity of human life." That's it, debate over. That's what we call the debate. I'm going wait a minute, hold on, no, debate the issue. Cause the guy over here is supposed to look at that guy and say "Wait a minute, you believe in a woman's right to choose please finish the sentence. Cause I believe in a woman's right to choose also... so you need to finish your sentence. You believe in a woman's right to choose to hire someone to murder her unborn child while still in the womb." Finish the sentence. And then as you finish the sentence here's a question I want you to answer. Do you know when life begins? If the answer to that question is yes and you know when life begins then you knowingly condone murder. If the answer to that question is no, and you don't know when life begins, then you knowingly condone a process that is likely to be murder. So in either instance you're condoning murder.

How come nobody does that in these debates?... Nobody's going to origin of life. Why? Because the debate is not about life. Abortion is about feminism. Pure and simple, that's what it is. And even those people who call themselves "pro-life" are [die hard] feminists and that's why they will not debate this issue aggressively. Cause they know that even if they win the debate on it's merits they've lost because they did not bow to feminism. ”
Biblical Manhood
“ Why daddy, why is it important [to read]? It's important because a man has to learn how to read so that he can read the word of God for himself. I want you to read God's word and I want you to know what God's word says. And the closer you get to reading the closer you get to reading God's word for yourself... You also need to learn how to write.
    Why daddy, why do I need to learn how to write? It's important that you learn how to write because writing is communication and we're commanded in God's word to speak forth God's word to the nations. If you are going to be an effective communicator you have to learn how to write. So you need to learn how to write so that you can communicate God's word effectively. Then you need to learn how to do math.
    Why daddy, why do I have to learn how to do math? Well because math is basically reasoning put to numbers. It's symbols that teach you how to reason, and you want to be an intelligent man so that you can be an articulate man and you can give an answer for the hope that lies within you. So we have to do math so that we learn how to be reasoning beings, but there's another reason that you learn to do math. It's the same reason we learn how to do science.
    Why? Because the heavens declare the glory of God and you need to learn how to read the heavens just like you read the Bible. So that in God's general revelation you can see and hear Him speak just like you do in God's special revelation.
    That's a huge difference from 'math, science, reading, writing, arithmetic, it doesn't matter who teaches that because they're completely divorced from our religion.' One raises a child who says 'I go and I do this so that I can pass a test and get a job. Another raises a child who says everything that I do is for the glory and the honor of the most high God. ”
Thoroughly Christian Education
“ Nothing shapes worldview like education. ”

“ God is not running for [the office of] God. He was the only one around when the votes were cast and there's never going to be a recount. ”

“ Love is an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of it's object. ”

“ Inform, transform, conform ”
Getting Your House in Order
“ Besides question number one (show me separation of church and state in the constitution) question number two is this. When you only isolate Jesus isn't it the separation of Christianity and state? ”
The Ever-Loving Truth
“ [The Bible is] a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eye witnesses during the lifetime of other eye witnesses that report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfullment of specific prophecies and claim to be devine rather than human in origin. ” [2 Peter 1:16-21, 1 John 1:1-3, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8]

“ Most people who believe 'we're basically good,' they don't have kids. ”
Why I Believe the Bible
June 30, 2005
“ Leaders never have to tell people that they're the leader. Men if you have to tell your wife that you're the head of your house it's because you're not. It's because you are not conducting yourself in such a way that she knows who you are because of the character you exemplify. Male headship is not about lording it over those whom we lead. It's about being so Christ like that it is evident to everyone around us that we are the head of our home. It's about being the spiritual priest, the spiritual prophet, the physical provider, and the physical and spiritual protector of our households. ”

“ Radical Feminism says 'we're seeking egalitarianism, there's no difference between men and women, what any man can do any woman can do and we should not see distinctions between men and women.' There's one area however where the egalitarian has a problem and that's the area of child bearing. That's a distinction you can't get rid of, which is why the abortion movement is tied to the feminist movement. That's why when you make an argument with somebody who's pro abortion and you talk about when life begins you may as well be speaking Martian. They don't care when life begins, the point is "a woman having control over her own body." A woman deciding whether or not she will have children, thereby placing her in a situation where she can have complete egality with men. That's why people ignore out of hand and almost completely the scientific arguments against abortion. ”
Biblical Headship
Februrary 24, 2008






Last Modified: Thursday, October 19, 2017