Welcome to the audio podcast of Erwin Raphael McManus, the Lead Pastor and founder of MOSAIC, a community of faith in Los Angeles California. Known for their innovation, creativity, and artistry, MOSAIC has been named one of the most influential and innovative churches in America. Erwin Raphael McManus communicates on culture, creativity, change, and leadership and is widely known as a thought-provoking communicator, poet, and wordsmith. For more information and to stay up to date with Pastor Erwin and MOSAIC please visit http://www.mosaic.org or download the Mosaic app.
As life. And together, what we're saying is my life is not the only important thing happening in the world. Someone came to me last night young guy in his twenties. And he said, you know, I grew up in church and I believed, and then I became really angry and cynical, and I stopped believing completely. And then I tried to live life on my own. I'm going, man, you live a long life to be in your early twenties. And but, you know, you ever talked like a twenty two year old who talks like they've been around for, like, 90 years. You know, when I was a young man and and they're kinda, like, walking me through their journey, but you could tell it was real and it was deep and it was painful. He goes, and I and I try to live a life of unconditional love in a world where there was none. He said, I've just started coming back to most, to church, and I found Mosaic. And he was at the event last night, and he said, I am so grateful for this place that has brought me back to faith. And brought me into community because I so desperately needed it. And I thought, man, if people could just realize how hard it is to live life alone because we were not created to live that way. We were created to live in community. For the past several weeks other than the brief interlude last week when we talked about why worship matters, we've been talking about god. We've been talking about who god is and what he says about him. And and we've been trying to erase a lot of the false narratives that dominate our culture about who god is, especially in the Old Testament. And one of the great challenges, of course, is that when you hear about god, you tend to only hear about him through rumor. Very rarely does a person kinda dive in and say, what does god say about himself? I I meet so many people who say I just don't believe the Bible. And when I say which part, they go, I don't know. I've never read it. And and and I go, you know, it's really difficult to address that particular issue. And what ends up happening is that we hear so much about the Bible and so much about god that creates a huge wall of belief for us. And and it's it's real. It's not an illusion.
