Rich Mullins

I have been listening a lot to Rich Mullins' music recently. Many of you will be familiar with his songs (Awesome God, If I stand and many other albums). He died tragically in a car accident in 1997. He was an artist who didn't take himself too seriously, but took God real seriously. I was reading some quotes by him. Here are a few...

"Proof texting is a very dangerous thing. I think if we were given the scriptures it was not so that we could prove that we were right about everything. If we were given the scriptures it was to humble us into realizing that God is right and the rest of us are just guessing. Which is what makes them so much fun to read, especially if you are not a fundamentalist."

"And this is what I have come to think: That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, whom I claim to be my Savior and Lord the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken."

"Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids—not because you are right. That's how our Father listens to us ... We never understand what we're praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom."

"It's just that for so many people that I know, Christianity's this matter of ... it has everything to do with morals. Christianity is a religion about morals. And they will even talk about Jesus. And they will say kids need to know about Jesus so they won't smoke, drink, or dance, or go with girls that do, and all that kind of thing. And I kinda go, "That's not why people need to know about Jesus. The only reason—the only possible excuse for talking about Jesus is because we need a Savior."

"I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity to me, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts."


I so love people who are outside the box.....