5 Questions with Eric Bryant
I was connecting earlier in the week with my friend, Eric Bryant, about innovations in the church. Eric is on the leadership team at Mosaic. I thought you might be interested in hearing a little bit more about his story, so I asked Eric for an interview. Here’s what he had to share.
TONY: For those that aren’t familiar with you, they may know your boss. Tell us about how you ended up connecting with Erwin McManus in ministry.
ERIC: A friend of mine and I were on a road trip through California considering different seminaries when I met Erwin. He shared some amazing stories with us about people in L.A. who were choosing to follow Jesus and then moving to the Middle East as missionaries just a couple of years later. Even though I had already chosen to move to Seattle, I stayed in touch with what was happening at his church. In 1998, my wife Debbie and I moved to Los Angeles to volunteer at Mosaic. I started as a volunteer in the parking lot but then later worked with students, helped catalyze new venues across Los Angeles, and now oversee our leadership team and campus pastors.
TONY: Do you have a recent God-story from Mosaic that you’d like to share?
ERIC: A new friend of mine at Loyola Marymount University really began exploring the possibility of a personal relationship with God. At first, she was too afraid to change what she was doing to follow Jesus. She felt it was just easier to keep doing what she was doing with her life even though she was miserable. After several months of conversations, she decided to make a dramatic change and chose to follow Christ. She has already changed so dramatically! I love how our community allowed her to belong for so long well before she finally believed!
TONY: Mosaic is known for its diversity. What is the church doing differently to impact such a broad cross-section of the community?
ERIC: I think our intentional focus on serving and loving those we already know at school, work, or in the neighborhood has helped us break through barriers. Rather than trying to reach strangers with impersonal methods, we are moving people into genuine and authentic friendships which naturally leads to changed lives. We moved past programs and into relationships. Ultimately, our focus is on creating a community that embraces the mission of Jesus to change the world. When you have a volunteer staff that sees itself as missionaries to a city as diverse as Los Angeles, you cannot help but reach people from different ethnic, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds.
TONY: You’ve delved a little deeper on that topic in your book, Peppermint-filled Pinatas. Share with us the premise of the book.
ERIC: In our pluralistic, post-Christian, and ever-changing world, we need to learn how to love, serve, and even reach those with whom we differ, disagree, and even dislike. My book attempts to help Christians overcome the negative Christian stereotype by embracing the people Christians “love to hate.”
TONY: Where is God currently stretching your thinking and faith?
ERIC: I am on a journey to discover how to organize and maximize innovation! Just looking at the book of Acts, I have been amazed at how similar and yet how different Paul’s efforts were in each of the cities where he served.
