Here’s the latest from McManus Studios, Erwin’s lifestyle mark. Enjoy. mcmanus from McManus Studios on Vimeo
11
November
McManus.la
20
November
What’s happening in the mystic…
Welcome back. You belong here.
Lots of ways for you to connect …
New Article How Leaders help Others Grow
The IMN Strengths Center Dale Swinburne joins the IMN staff as the director of the IMN Strengths Center. The post above is the first step in helping you discover, develop and deploy your super strengths.
Online Class An Orientation to the Strengths Finder hosted by IMN Mentor, Dale Swinburne, Director of the IMN Strengths Center, and led by Strengths Coach, Joe Dworak. The learning environment opens at 10AM (ET) on Monday, December 4, and closes at 5PM (PT) on Thursday, December 7. Tuition is $99.00. Register online.
HUMANA 2.0 Finally, in one place, get your head and heart around mosaic, house church, cyber community, and market place mission. Join Erwin, Alex McManus, and others in Orlando, Florida on February 7-8, for a convergence of missional leaders. Details at fight4humanity.com.
7-Day Mentoring Immersion Enroll now for the IMN 7-Day Mentoring Immersion in Orlando (February 2-8) or Los Angeles (Aril 27 -May 3).
IMN ALUMNI Join us again for the 2007 cohort and take the quantum leap.
21
April
Africa
I’ve been meeting with a couple of hundred women and men,
some deeply embedded in dangerous and harsh fields.
I’ve listened to first hand accounts of Muslims traveling
by the cover of night for a chance to hear of the mystic…
of mystic warriors traveling by camel over the most
hostile terrains for the chance to guide others towards the mystic…
of soldiers blinded by a mystic light and kept from
seeing recent converts hiding in nearby quarters for months at a time…
of radically converted guides changing from one set of clothes to another seconds before authorities came to arrest them…and escaping capture.
I’ve been teaching on the subject of spiritual warfare and spiritual wellness…
but I’ve been learning too. And remembering.
VOX of the day: Top 10 Reasons to go to ORIGINS
photos: giraffes running; me on safari in search of the mystic; death waiting; chameleon; tall tree; red tree. photos: Lucas McManus, Alex McManus.
into the mystic…
Alex McManus
15
April
The Way of The Mystic — Glossary
Welcome back.
I’m at London’s Heathrow airport on my way to Kenya. We flew in overnight from LA on a British Airways 747. The pic below is me and youngest son, Lucas Daniel, during our four wait for our flight to Nairobi. Here are some thoughts from a recently discovered and little known source called The Way of The Mystic.
The Way of The Mystic –Glossary
mys·ti·cism n 1. the belief that personal communication or union with the divine is achieved through intuition, faith, ecstasy, or sudden insight rather than through rational thought 2. a system of religious belief or practice that people follow to achieve personal communication or union with the divine 3. vague or unsubstantiated thought or speculation about something (The Encarta World English Dictionary)
The Way of The Mystic: on Mysticism…
Within the world of the mystic, however, there is as much distaste for “unsubstantiated thought or speculation” as there is for blind faith in “rationalism”. The mystic warrior becomes a mystic because he must …based on a supernatural connection with the primal heartbeat of the universe. The simple fact they live with is that what they have come to know is a gift. Their way has been given to them. (Source: The Way of The Mystic)
Coming up:
- The Way of The Mystic Glossary: Rationalism, Bibliolatry
- The Mystic Leader’s Crash Course –Part 5: Clouds
VOX of the Day: A Missional Response to the Gospel of Judas by Brian Russell.
into the mystic…
Alex McManus
copyright, 2006.
17
January
List for the Day
In search of the mystic. Can you find the sign?
Welcome back. You belong here.
Here’s a list…
- Teams that are doing it: Baptisms in Germany photographed and documented by Erica McManus.
Scroll down past the nature shots to January 16, 2006.
Erica at work writing.
-
Top Blog Post: The Church’s New Address — perspective from Mark Hoelterhoff in Lithuania.
Mark asks, Where is the church’s PO BOX?
- MUST SEE movie/documentary: Born Into Brothels -2005 rated R . If you appreciated Crash, you will be m o v e d by Born Into Brothels. It will help you remember why doing something to make the world a better place matters.
in search between Brussels and London.
into the mystic…
Alex McManus
2
April
2005-04-02 16:35:00
Ground speed: 475 miles per hour.
Altitude: 36,000 feet
Outside Temperature: -76 degrees Fahrenheit
Thursday: Lufthansa Airlines is the first airline in the world to offer in-flight wireless Internet. However, my battery is about out so I’ll have to finish this and send it a bit later. At this writing I’m somewhere over the mid Atlantic on my way home to Los Angeles from Germany. Except for a day and a half of sickness, I had an excellent time in Europe. Met with a very cool group of world changers there. Looking forward to telling you all about it and seeing some of them join our growing community here at my blog.
Friday: Starting Monday…the seven distinct “action logics” of leadership.
into the mystic…
Alex McManus
24
March
Aksana
meet our new friend, aksana. we met her today on our train ride to zurich.
she’s russian and has lived in germany for 14 years. she is traveling to bern, switzerland to visit her boyfriend who is from iran.
her grandmother, mother and father are “evangelische”. aksana, however, doesn’t go to church. too slow. too boring.
one day, there will be a mosaic in munich for people like her. who will go to start the work? whom shall we send?
into the mystic…
alex mcmanus
zurich, switzerland
23
March
Zurich
michael in front of our hotel in munich
sitting side by side with michael at a bistro and internet cafe. we
both brought our laptops but couldn’t connect wirelessly. so we’re both
a computer terminals. unfortunately i can’t remember how to access my
webmail so here i am bloggin away.
tomorrow we take off for zurich.
i’ll be directing people to my band’s new website (doSul.org) and
handing out demos – (btw, mel, how’s the site coming?) – as well as
connecting with church planters along the way. i’m sure that soon we’ll
have for our european contacts a cool page at least and maybe some place where we can place
fotos, video and music, along with a gig alert calendar.
train leaves at 8.14 am –line 19
well gotta go buy train tickets.
into the mystic…
alex mcmanus
munich, germany
28
February
Red Carpet Room
this picture isn’t blurry. we were simply vibrating at a different frequency
when it was taken. afm
————————————————————-
London, England
4.44 PM
most of us believe we know what we think we see.
erica, my 14 year old daughter, and i were outbound on a mission into the heart of europe, and passed the time chatting as we walked through the los angeles international airport.
“it’s like drawing,†she said.
“yes, drawing is all about seeing,†i said. “most of us sketch by looking more at our work on the paper than the subject we are sketching. we try to draw by memory rather than by observation, by what we think we see rather than what we see. learning to draw is all about learning to see.†[yes, we often talk like this in the mcmanus home. like my daughter says, strange is not a crime].
before my turn towards seeing christ, i had no recollection of ever seeing church buildings. i was blind to their huge presence on the american landscape. after i saw christ, these new realities began to suddenly pop up and out of everywhere. i remember returning to college and seeing for the first time the immense methodist church building at the entrance of the property. i had never seen it before. had God built that church for me over the summer? no, he’d given me new eyes.
“for example, erica,†i said, “as we walked towards the gates. “most people in this airport don’t know about the red carpet rooms.â€
“what’s that?â€
“they’re lounges used by frequent flyers and business people,†i said. suddenly, as if coordinated by the finger of God, the wall to our left opened. “there,†i said feeling quite like a magician.
we looked through the wall into a room of comfortable chairs with a bar and tvs.
“whoa,†she said. the sliding doors closed. “what was that?â€
the doors were painted in such a way that it blended with the walls on both sides well. one would have to “see it†to know it was there. [Or perhaps, one would have to know it was there to see it.]
i looked up to read the signs to make sure we’re going in the right direction.
gates 70-77
restrooms
red carpet room
suddenly all of the clues began to pop up and out. the world was new. she knew what she was seeing. a whole new world existed behind this wall that was not a wall but a door, a sliding door.
“red carpet room,†erica said.
i love it when she nods her head and gets this smile on her face, like she’s been let in on a little mystery. “red carpet room,†i said.
people draw what they think they see not what they’re looking at. learning to draw and learning to live have this in common: it’s all about learning to see.
into the mystic…
© alex mcmanus, 2005