Revisiting Erwin McManus' Revisionist History Part 2

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Dear Readers: I have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of "revisions" regarding the history of The Church on Brady that I have discovered during the course of my research on this topic. Here are a few of my latest findings:




2000

"Into the Future: Turning Today's Church Trends into Tomorrow's Opportunities"
By Elmer Towns and Warren Bird, Foreward by Dr. Leith Anderson
Copyright 2000 by Elmer Towns and Warren Bird
Published by Fleming H. Revell, a division of Baker Book House Company
P.O.Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

http://www.elmertowns.com/books/online/into_future/Into_the_Future[ETowns].pdf

The following is from the above book:

Page 19

New Slant on Apologetics: Reaching Artists through the
Arts

Mosaic (Formerly The Church on
Brady)

Denomination: Southern Baptist Convention
(SBC)

Lead Pastor: Erwin McManus (since
1993)

Recent goal: To produce radical disciples of Jesus Christ; to be a spiritual reference point throughout Los Angeles and sending base to the ends of the earth.

Church vision: To live by faith, to be known by love and to be a voice of hope.

Year founded: 1953

Attendance: 1100 (now) 500 (5 years ago) 600 (10 years ago)

My comments: The goal and vision stated above were originally proposed by Pastor Thomas A. Wolf of the Church on Brady.

The attendance numbers given in this book do not match up with what was really happening at Brady during this time period. The book was published in 2000, if the numbers given were correct this would mean that attendance fell from 600 in 1990 to 500 by 1995.

While there may have been some variance in the attendance numbers during this time period keep in mind that the Church on Brady was also involved in a major church renovation project that was needed to expand the existing facilities to accomodate the phenomenal growth the congregation was experiencing BEFORE Erwin McManus came on as lead pastor.

At one time, the Church on Brady was holding three Sunday services, Wednesday night classes and experimented for a time with a Saturday night service to help ease the over-crowding issues on Sunday mornings. Parking space became a major obstacle for further growth since the original church had only two small lots immediately adjacent to the building. Congregants would park their cars up and down Brady Avenue and on the side streets that intersected it. Eventually, the church was able to purchase an additional plot of land on Brady Avenue just north of the building and converted it into a paved and lighted parking lot and when this too became inadequate the church obtained permission to use a small, gravel paved lot situated under the electrical towers further up the street. A volunteer-driven shuttle bus was used to ferry people from these far lots to the front door of the Church on Brady.

Here is a notable quote from this book:

"If people are coming here to be entertained, they're going to be shocked. What we're doing is for people who are serious about truth," says McManus, known for his hard-hitting preaching. The church offers serious training for those who would become Jesus' disciples. For several years it sent out more overseas believers than any other Southern Baptist congregation, even those ten times its size. In thirty months they sent thirty-two adults into the 10/40 window.

My comment: The Church on Brady was known for it's unusual commitment to missions but this was already a fact before Erwin arrived.

“GenX Religion” by Richard W. Flory and Donald Earl Miller. Routledge, New York, London. Published 11/15/2000.

See excerpts regarding the Church on Brady, article on Mosaic written by LaDawn Prieto

http://books.google.com/books?id=B2yKZwd6l2EC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=%22the+church+on+brady%22&source=web&ots=q-Pv0P9dC7&sig=XWKbg5DDCJWea8eNVD9rR-K-hd0

Another link to above:
http://books.google.com/books?id=B2yKZwd6l2EC&pg=PA57&dq=%22the+church+on+brady%22&sig=q3-dgBbV4JhqLIMnUrRRiWKxHRI

"Having been in other church ministries with the leaders at Mosaic, then called "the Church on Brady," he and his family felt comfortable with the community and began attending services. He stated that he began volunteering as a consultant to the church to assist in strategizing to raise the falling church attendance numbers. Erwin's contributions were seen as significant to the church as he brought experience as a national and international consultant and speaker on the issues of leadership development, organizational change, church planting, and urban and global issues."

My comments: Erwin McManus DID NOT come to the Church on Brady as a consultant "to assist in strategizing to raise the falling attendance numbers!" There were NO falling attendance numbers! The Church on Brady was practically bursting at the seams when Erwin took over from Pastor Thomas Wolf (aka: Bro. Tom.) This statement completely ignores and dismisses the "Share the Vision" capitol fundraising campaign and the additional "Build the Vision" capital fund-raising campaign that were launched to fund the church remodeling and expansion. It also completely ignores and dismisses the "Believe the Impossible" fundraising campaign that BEGAN on June 27, 1997, just 4 years after Erwin McManus came on as lead pastor! All of this is documented in my previous blog entry, "A Revisionist History of the Church on Brady."
http://solidfoods.blogspot.com/2007_03_11_archive.html

Another quote:

"I can honestly say that I didn't want to be pastor but felt like God wanted me to be the pastor." He said that he felt he could bring the church into a more multicultural experience and desired to "do something that either no one else will do, or no one else can do."

My comments: The Church on Brady was a "multi-cultural" church long before Erwin arrived.



2002

"Future Church: Ministry in a Post-Seeker Age," copyright 2002 by Jim L. Wilson, Published by Serendipity House, 8100 SouthPark Way, LIttleton, CO 80120

http://www.gregwa.com/images/future.pdf

Portrait:

“Moving with the Spirit”
Mosaic, Los
Angeles, CA


After ten years in the Dallas Metroplex, McManus packed up his family and moved to Los Angeles and continued his ministry as a futurist and consultant to various Christian ministries. Tom Wolf, the pastor of the Church on Brady, had previously asked McManus to consider becoming the pastor of his church. McManus said no. "Anybody who reads anything that Lyle Schallar has written," McManus says, "knows you don't follow a 25-year pastorate because you're destined for failure." He did agree, however, to serve the church as a consultant one day a week after he arrived in LA.

Later, the Elders of the church approached McManus with the same question. This time McManus said he would become their pastor if he got a unanimous call. Knowing that no pastor gets a unanimous call in a Southern Baptist Church, McManus felt safe. When the votes were counted, there wasn't a single one dissenting. After a period of transition, McManus became the pastor of the church and Wolf moved into a position with Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, CA.

My comment: In my update to "A Revisionist History of the Church on Brady?" I revealed that there were at least 4 votes against approving Erwin McManus as pastor for the Church on Brady. http://solidfoods.blogspot.com/2007_03_18_archive.html

Later in the same book:

With a passion he learned serving the urban poor, McManus built on the mission spirit of the Church on Brady to lead the people into the future. He changed the ambiance of the worship center to feel more like a cafe than an auditorium. Sprinkled among the traditional seating they set up mosaic tables and sofas and chairs.

My comment: At least Erwin acknowledges that "he built on the mission spirit of the Church on Brady."

Still later:

The church is multi-ethnic, multi-generational, and multi-cultural. Among the 100-plus people a year the church baptized are Communists, Buddhists, Hindus, and members of the gay community. The church attracts Asians, Hispanics, Anglos, Blacks, and just about any other ethnicity that lives in the area. They shatter the homogeneous unit principle and include everyone

My comment: Once again, the church was ALREADY "multi-ethnic, multi-generational, and multi-cultural. " Now that Erwin McManus has taken over he has shifted it's ministry focus towards the young.

One more quote from "Future Church":

When McManus came to the Church on Brady, it was contemporary, following an 80's model of ministry. In fact, it was a leader in the contemporary church movement. But even though it was a contemporary church, it was time-locked in the 80s. Los Angeles had moved into the future while Brady remained behind. Any church with fixed structure in a fluid environment will become outdated and irrelevant. What the church was calling "contemporary" wasn't. So McManus began leading them into the future.

My comments: The Church on Brady may have been classified as "contemporary" but it had an impressive reputation for church planting and sending out foreign missionaries. The only serious constraint the church experienced was not enough space to accomodate the growing congregation. This is precisely what the "Believe the Impossible" fundraising campaign was all about.

The statement, "Any church with fixed structure in a fluid environment will become outdated and irrelevant" doesn't account for the fact that Erwin was leading the congregation towards the purchase of a larger BUILDING.

ERWIN'S OWN WORDS

The following is from an online discussion about Erwin McManus' book "An Unstoppable Force." This "conversation" took place in 2002: (The bad grammar in the first entry is copied directly from the source.)

http://easumbandy.com/fileadmin/community/Coaching_Seminar_Archive_Files/Erwin_McManus_062002-An_Unstoppable_Force.pdf

mosaic experiment
From: erwin
Comments

several of your comments or questions ask for a bit of our story. mosaic is over 50 years old. born out of s.b.c.roots we are still affiliated. church had many great features when i came 10 years ago, yet faced some real crisis. it had been stuck at 500(adults and children- about 300 adults) and had been declining for 4 years. they were in about $1,000,000 debt, deficit of nearly $90,000 and a little more than a thousand dollars in the bank. low morale was no small contributor to the situation.

My comments: Once again, the Church on Brady was NOT declining! Also, there was no financial "crisis", the church was in debt for approximately $1,000,000 but this was because of a loan taken out to pay for the church remodeling. Once the renovations were complete, the property value of the Church on Brady actually rose to at least $2,000,000 (this is a conservative estimate, the actual amount was closer to $3 million!) Bonds had been sold to the congregation as a part of the "Build the Vision" campaign and these were actually paid out EARLY! (My husband, who was single at that time, purchased one of these bonds and was pleasantly surprised when he got his money back faster than he had expected.)

Due to the rise in property values in Los Angeles, when the Church on Brady property was eventually sold, the congregation made more than enough money to pay off it's remaining debt and had plenty to spare.

I don't know what Erwin meant by "low morale." The Church on Brady I remember was pretty excited by the growth and changes that were happening during this time.

This is what Erwin had to say about the "transition" from the Church on Brady to Mosaic:

Several of you asked about our transition. Perhaps the most significant mistake we made was that the former pastor, who was here 24 years before me, remained as an elder and held the position of teaching pastor(although I did all the teaching). He was only 49 years old at the time of the transition, so it wasn't a retirement scenario. Though we held many common heart values, our approach, style and rate of change and implementation dramatically differed. Things worked well as long as I was furthering the vision and ethos he had established. Once that began to change as a result of my own personal leadership, things went bad fast. We underestimated the inseparable nature of spiritual leadership and individuals. You can give up your position, your title, really any formal authority, and if you have 25 years of leadership credibility, you have not relinquished leadership in that context. It was not necessary for him to oppose me or any of my actions - to simply remain neutral or indifferent was enough to turn people in the opposite direction. If he expressed concern, doubt or disapproval, it was nothing less than polarized leadership. The elders of the congregation who had all been appointed by him and had known him for decades eventually asked him to resign. As you may well know, this is unheard of. It's always the new guy that gets the boot. These men, though his best friends, were committed both to my leadership and the future of the church.

My comments: Bro. Tom was the "teaching pastor" because he "taught" at Golden Gate Seminary. The title was more of a honorarium than an indication of his position at the Church on Brady. Of course Erwin McManus "did all of the teaching", he was the lead pastor!

This is the story I was told about the Bro. Tom incident:

When tensions erupted between Bro. Tom and Erwin, the Elders tried to diffuse the situation by recommending that Bro. Tom step down from his position as elder and leave temporarily, for a period of about 1 year, in order to give the congregation a chance to "get used" to relying on Erwin alone. The Elders had every intention of inviting Bro. Tom back once this had been accomplished.

The Elders did not ask Bro. Tom to resign, he offered his letter of resignation after the recommendation was presented to him.

Erwin McManus was aware of this recommendation before it was presented to Bro. Tom.

While I may not agree with the way this situation was handled, I believe the Elders acted in what they felt was the best interest of the church. These men had called Erwin McManus to the pastorship of the Church on Brady and in doing so, they had committed themselves to serving under his leadership.

2007

Ministry Mentor, “Pastor as Architect” Interview with Erwin McManus. 2007
http://www.ministrymentor.com/archives/details.asp?issue=5/1/2007

Here are some quotes from Erwin McManus:

"I came to Mosaic as a volunteer. Nobody called me here to be the pastor."

How does Erwin reconcile the above statement with what he told Jim L. Wilson, the author of "Future Church" back in 2002? [See the quotation from "Future Church" listed above under the year 2002.]

The church owned property--¾ of an acre with only 40 parking spaces, and we had over a thousand people coming to Mosaic. So we sold the property. For the last ten years we’ve been homeless, in a sense, across the city of LA. Two years ago, we were in seven locations in one year. But that’s allowed us to be at critical epicenters all over LA.

To do this, we had to change our theological position. The church’s name was “The Church on Brady” The church name was a location that you came to. But the church isn’t a place that you come to--we are the church. We are sent out into the world.

Once again Erwin forgets to mention the fact that his congregation had raised over $700,000 towards the purchase of a new facility during the "Believe the Impossible" campaign. If Erwin felt so strongly that "the church isn't a place that you come to," why didn't he return this money to the donors?

Then there is this final dig at the former members of the Church on Brady who disagreed with his "vision":

There were people who were committed to coming to the building but were not committed to the missions of the church. They loved the church’s stability, its predictability, and the safety that was found there. Basically, we said, “No, it’s not going to be a place that’s defined by comfort and predictability. We’re going to be a place known by risk and faith and sacrifice.”

Question: What about the numerous people who gave "sacrificially" at the urging of Erwin McManus? What happened to Erwin's "vision" to provide these people with a new building?



A concluding thought:


Erwin McManus said, "What we're doing is for people who are serious about truth."

My guestion to Erwin McManus is, "What 'truth' are you speaking about?"

Yvonne W.

*Should any of the above links suddenly become "unavailable" I have retained copies for my files.

Update: The following quote by Erwin McManus can be found in his 2008 interview with The Chrisitian Post, http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080122/30917_Interview:_Cultural_Architect_on_Rethinking_Church_Methods,_Not_Gospel.htm,

CP: Do you have predictions for trends that will occur inside the church in
the new year, such as multi-site or satellite broadcast?

McManus: I’ve been doing multi-site since 1988 so for me this is not a new thing. I’ve been part of multiple sites for 20 years, but back then people just thought I was out of my mind. But now they think it is the new way, so it’s never fun doing it so early because everyone thinks you’re just crazy.

Erwin has been "doing multi-site since 1988?" Erwin took over the pastorship of the Church on Brady in 1993. The Church on Brady property was sold sometime around 2001.

So if Erwin was already "doing multi-site" BEFORE he came to the Church on Brady, why did he urge his new congregation to "give sacrificially" towards the purchase of a new building in 1997 during the "Believe the Impossible" campaign?