This is Rich Mullins talking in the middle of a concert in Lufkin, Texas in 1997. In it he says a lot of the things that have been compelling me to go on a missions trip to Ethiopia for six months. I just want to quote the whole thing for you - a lot of it is humorous, a lot of it seems dissatisfied (for good reason) with Christians and with Christian music, but a lot of that dissatisfaction is because we’re not bad people, we’re just wrong, but then there’s this beauty to what he’s saying that breaks me, and it just transcends all those little things. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to watch this without crying. 

It’s not about pretending to be right, or proving I am right, but to realize how right GOD is, and even at my best I’m guessing. I think, in almost every letter I wrote this summer, I mentioned a summary of him saying that “if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ…. the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor.”

“Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with yr perfect little wife & yr perfect little children in a 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.”