Rich Mullins

“Friendship is not a remedy for loneliness. Loneliness is part of our experience, and if we are looking for relief from loneliness in friendship, we are only going to frustrate the friendship. Friendship, camaraderie, intimacy, all those things, and loneliness lived together in the same experience.”

“I think a lot of parents hand people over a blueprint and say, 'This is how you're supposed to do it.' And my parents, I think, kind of drew a picture and said, 'Here's the good stuff in life. How do you get there?'”

“I have attended church regularly since I was less than a week old. I've listened to sermons about virtue, sermons against vice. I have heard about money, time management, tithing, abstinence, and generosity. I've listened to thousands of sermons. But I could count on one hand the number of sermons that were a simple proclamation of the gospel of Christ.”

“We do not find happiness by being assertive. We don't find happiness by running over people because we see what we want and they are in the way of that happiness so we either abandon them or we smash them. The Scriptures don't teach us to be assertive. The Scriptures teach us—and this is remarkable—the Scriptures teach us to be submissive. This is not a popular idea.”

“It's so funny being a Christian musician. It always scares me when people think so highly of Christian music, Contemporary Christian music especially. Because I kinda go, I know a lot of us, and we don't know jack about anything. Not that I don't want you to buy our records and come to our concerts. I sure do. But you should come for entertainment. If you really want spiritual nourishment, you should go to church...you should read the Scriptures.”

“The difference between me and most Protestants is most Protestants have no problem at all saying 'The Lord told me this' or 'The Lord told me that,' but they won't believe that the Lord speaks through the pope. You know, at least this guy has some credentials.”

“We were given the Scriptures to humble us into realizing that God is right, and the rest of us are just guessing.”

“I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and He has been speaking through asses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'.”

“I don't know that the United States is 'God's Country,' but the church has been so strong here, and because of its influence, we hold life to be sacred and we believe that individuals have dignity. This is part of our legacy.”

“I think I would like to be a monk. I really considered Catholicism a few years ago, but there were some things that I just couldn't reconcile.”

“I would love to be a Franciscan brother. I'm just not sure I have the courage to do it.”

“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.”

“Joshua made the sun stand still in the sky, but I can't keep these thoughts of You from passing by.”

“Having grown up Protestant, I was unfamiliar with St. Francis. Then I watched the movie 'Brother Sun, Sister Moon'... I just became fascinated with the character of St. Francis. What I saw in that movie was a man who had fallen in love with God, someone for whom God was everything.”

“I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am.”

“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.”

“I have no physical genius about me. I can't dribble a ball and run at the same time, I can't do lay-ups - I'm not an athlete. But my experience as a kid was, I was made fun of so much that what I did then, is, I wouldn't participate. And I think I cheated myself out of a lot of fun.”