Erwin McManus quotes:

Often we talk about God's ability to change lives without fully understanding how to access that power.

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.

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.

For Christians, they need to access the power of Jesus and not look at Christianity as a religion. It is our Lord Jesus that makes you change, and Christians need to actualize it and put it into practice.

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.

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?

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.

One of the things you'll discover... as you listen to your own soul is that you spend a great amount of your life trying to bring meaning to your own life. And, by the way, most people are not going to church, so the place they're actually trying to find meaning in their life is at work.

I think Christianity is the same as Buddhism and Hinduism - whenever a religion begins to say that these are the things you have to do to be loved by God, you have a religion.

If we keep asking the wrong questions, we are just going to get better wrong answers. The solution to lack of community isn't to give up on the community.

Promise Keepers was looking for a movement that can actualize the hope of Jesus, the hope that we see. And 'Uprising' was what they were looking for.

You have a generation that is saying we are tapping out of religion in many ways. But what they are not saying is that we are tapping out of a serious search for meaning in life.

People outside of the faith really appreciate Mosaic and really love what we're doing.

God has leveraged the human spirit to move in His direction, and all the material we need to bring a person to the realization that they were created by God actually already exists inside that person.

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.

There is something powerful about singing to God as an act of worship, but it is time to reframe our perspective and our language to genuinely encompass all of life as worship.

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.

We're a part of the insurrection, trying to turn Christianity upside down. We're an experimental church: God's research and development arm.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

You can plant a church and grow a church. That's not that hard to do, but it's harder to be a viable source of transformation in a city or your time or space.

The bulk of our community is probably between the ages of 20 and 34.

Our job is not to change people; our job is to connect people to Jesus, and it's Jesus' job to change people.

God has given us an imagination, and our imagination is really the principle tool from which all creativity and artistry comes from.

I know it sounds crazy, but as soon as Christians start telling non-Christians how to live their lives, we've lost the Christian faith.

I think many times Christians don't really take the opportunity to hear what people are saying and seeing in the world around them.

We need to understand that Christianity is about changing; it is not about a religion.

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.

Wherever and whenever God is moving in a new and fresh way, there emerges a new song!

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.

I had someone a month ago tell me at a campaign lunch that you can't be a Christian and a Democrat. I think that that view is dissipating very, very fast.

We want to help everyone find meaning in their life and help translate the story that each person actually matters in the world.

The word 'entertain' means to hold someone's attention, and what we want is a faith that is vibrant and alive and beautiful and real.

I became a Christian because I met God.

My goal is to destroy Christianity as a world religion and be a recatalyst for the movement of Jesus Christ ... Some people are upset with me because it sounds like I'm anti-Christian. I think they might be right.

The church must acclimate to a changing world, or she will destine herself to irrelevance or even extinction. ...One of those dramatic changes in our environment is the shift from words to images. To do church in a way that is entirely text driven is the kiss of death.

When we dwell on the past, we tend to want to live there. When we dream of the future, we want to go there. Our dreams are where God paints a picture of a life waiting to be created.

Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.

It's not your freedom to choose that makes you free. It's what you choose in that freedom that makes you free.

The world doesn't need more great leaders, it needs more great people who lead.

The epicenter of creativity and imagination should be the Church, reflecting the character and glory of God.

It is amazing where God will take you when you are willing to follow. Life is full of surprises when we choose mystery over security.

You're not supposed to die with your potential. A life well lived squeezes all the potential placed within and does something with it.

A life well lived is the most exquisite work of art.

Problems, obstacles, and challenges can either become the markers of our limits and limitations, or they can become the springboard into a whole new world.

The Christian faith grew through story - not text. Only later did the stories become Scripture. While the Scripture must be held in the highest regard, we must not neglect the power of story.

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.

It is insanity to run from God and search for love.

Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.

When we stop believing the world can become a better place, when we stop caring about the lives and conditions of others, we lose a part of ourselves.

Talent doesn't win. Hard work, determination, and character wins. If you root your talent and ability in those things, then you have a powerful combination.

When the church becomes an institution, people are nothing more than volunteers to be recruited. When the church is a movement, our stewardship becomes the unleashing of our God-given gifts, talents, and passions.

How is it, that for many of us, being a good Christian is nothing more than being a good person? The entire focus of our faith has been the elimination of sin, which is important but inadequate; rather than the unleashing of a unique, original, extraordinary, wonderfully untamed, faith.

Jesus beckons his followers to a path that's far from the easy road. It's a path filled with adventure, uncertainty, and unlimited possibilities - the only path that can fulfill the deepest longings and desires of your heart.

You need to remember who God is, forget the painful wounds and let Him renew you.

The Bible is not an antiquated text. The scriptures are the text that will lead us into the future.

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.

I've worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I've led at Mosaic.

It is the creative and enterprising spirit of people that is indispensable. Everything else is supplemental.

The system of Christian celebrity was not a good space for me, and it was brutal on my kids - my son in college was frequently confronted by people railing against me as a heretic.

If you look at it from just a pure economic basis, technology is replacing all of the jobs robots can do, and machinery is replacing the jobs that humans once held. If we don't train our children to imagine, to create, they're going to be unemployable.

There are few things more powerful than a life lived with passionate clarity.

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.

We are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be.

I think a lot of us are not on a path; we're in a rut. We have confused comfort with peace, belief with faith, safety with wisdom, wealth with blessing, and existence with life.

Would you be willing to give your life to save the world if no one ever knew your name? If anonymity was the price you would have to pay for significance, would it be too great a price? To live a life of courage is not a guarantee of prestige or adulation. It only matters if you live and die fulfilling the mission you were born for.

God allows and at times causes us to go through the kinds of circumstances that strip away all falsehood and leave us with our real selves. God's ultimate intent is not to leave us faithless, but to leave us faith-full. There are few things as exhilarating as going through the fire and finding that you had the resilience to make it through. All of us wonder at times whether we have what it takes. God wants to bring us to a place where we have no doubt of the work He has done within us.

The church does not exist for us. We are the church, and we exist for the world.

If God imagined you at birth, what makes you think He's stopped imagining you now.

If our children are going to walk away from Christ, we need to raise them in such a way that they understand that to walk away from Jesus is to walk away from a life of faith, risk and adventure and to choose a life that boring, mundane and ordinary

The history of God's people is not a record of God searching for courageous men and women who could handle the task, but God transforming the hearts of cowards and calling them to live courageous lives.

God gives God-sized dreams to people with God-shaped hearts.

The person who loves the process has a much greater chance of success than the person who loves the outcome.

The limitations you are willing to accept establish the boundaries of your existence.

Your dreams are the product of your longings, a portrait of your potential, and a promise of your future.

Within a moment there is monumental potential. That is the mystery of a moment. It is small enough to ignore and big enough to change your life forever

It is amazing how much we can endure when we are convinced there is a purpose to our struggle.

If you were meant to fly, not even running really fast is that impressive.

True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom.

Jesus' death wasn't to free us from dying, but to free us from the fear of death. Jesus came to liberate us so that we could die up front and then live. Jesus Christ wants to take us to places where only dead men and women can go.

Gratitude changes your perspective about life. You see the future, experience the present, and remember the past in a dramatically different way.

Churches all over the country have decided they love their traditions more than their children.

Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home.

Deeper than our instinct to live is our longing to be alive.

The more isolated and disconnected we are, the more shattered and distorted our self-identity. We are not healthy when we are alone. We find ourselves when we connect to others. Without community we don't know who we are... When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others. We lose ourselves...Who we understand ourselves to be is dramatically affected for better or worse by those we hold closest to us.

God clarifies in the midst of obedience, not beforehand.

We can't change history, but we can create the future.

When you live your life knowing the mission and calling and voice of God in your soul and you know where that compass is driving you forward, you will become a rare commodity in a world searching for direction.

A world without God cannot wait for us to choose the safe path. If we wait for someone else to take the risk, we risk that no one will ever act and that nothing will ever be accomplished.

You cannot wash the feet of a dirty world if you refuse to touch it

The Barbarian Way was, in some sense, trying to create a volatile fuel to get people to step out and act. It's pretty hard to get a whole group of people moving together as individuals who are stepping into a more mystical, faith-oriented, dynamic kind of experience with Christ. So, I think Barbarian Way was my attempt to say, "Look, underneath what looks like invention, innovation and creativity is really a core mysticism that hears from God, and what is fuelling this is something really ancient. That's what was really the core of The Barbarian Way.

The church is not here to meet our needs. We are the church here to meet the needs of the world.

A person God himself deems as wise is one who not only hears His voice, but immediately begins to act upon His instruction.

For years I have made it my mission to destroy the influence of the Christian clich, 'the safest place to be is in the center of the will of God.' God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance. God created you so that your life would count, not so that you could count the days of your life,

The most important moments rarely come at a convenient time

You are both a work of art and an artist at work.

The real measure of our power is the freedom and opportunity we create for others.

I refused to let go of what I had.

Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.

Two thousand years ago, God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don't ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear His name.

Love never comes without wounds; faith never comes without failure.

Great dreams require great courage.

How in the world could you ever imagine a life of faith that does not require risk? Faith and risk are inseparable.

When calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. If to be authentic means to be who we really are or to express what we really feel, then in most cases I'm going to vote for hypocrisy. Our prisons are filled with men and women who acted on their feelings and impulses. If authenticity is about being true to yourself, these individuals should be our models of inspiration.

Faith is the determination to create with our lives what only our hearts can conceive.

Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing his name.

The shape of your character is the shape of your future.

The first and most important step in the process of becoming genuinely is to be once again authenticated by the original designer.

The journey to freedom is paved by the substance of our character.

The fuel of ambition is not the problem; it is the focus of ambition that frees or betrays us.

Sin creates the illusion of freedom. In the end it fools us into seeking freedom from God rather than finding freedom in God.

We have to ask ourselves, 'Am I really trying to discern God's will, or determine whether I want to do it?'

We are all time voyagers leaving history in our wake, pioneering into the future.

To live outside of God's will puts us in danger; to live in his will makes us dangerous.

When we lack integrity, we use power to control. When we lead with integrity, we use power to bless.

Our citizenship is in eternity; history is our temporary residence.