A Pastor By Any Other Name

Erwin McManus

Erwin McManus was one of three finalists whose commercial was aired during Super Bowl XLIV

By Jennifer Hadley

Until recently, anyone who told me it would be easier to arrange an interview with a movie star than with a pastor would have been firmly placed at the top of my “You’re Nuts” list. But that was before I tried to arrange an interview with Erwin McManus

I assume McManus is a hard man to find because of the newfound publicity he’s gained after creating a commercial that aired during this past Super Bowl XLIV (44 for us laymen); a commercial he made for only $3,000. It tells the story of a man faking his own death, in order to watch football and eat Doritos (true story… not).

Everyone must want a piece of this story. Heck, that’s why I want to interview him. A pastor making a nationally televised commercial for the world's largest snack maker? Come on, the best PR agent in the world couldn’t spin a better hook than that.

But I’m wrong again. Although his commercial “Casket” was one of the winners of the Doritos Crash The Super Bowl Contest™, a quick Google-search of 51 year-old McManus immediately spells out why this guy's so hard to reach. McManus is apparently not your run-of-the-mill-pastor-cum-national-breakthrough-advertising-guru-of-the-year. On the contrary, if I’m to believe everything on the internet (a stretch, I know), I’m attempting to arrange an interview with a schizophrenic.

Online, McManus is (in no particular order): a speaker, leader, author, lecturer, activist, filmmaker, AND pastor. Incidentally, that’s just on page 1 of the search (scroll a few pages in and you’ll also see he’s been awarded the flattering title of "heretic"). To boot, McManus is one of our own, strolling the streets of downtown Los Angeles on two legs like the rest of us. Radical. I can’t wait to meet this "warrior poet."

I’m a little let down when McManus shows up at Starbucks on time. Although his graying goatee does provide the perfect devil-may-care accent to his v-neck tee shirt, flannel button-up, and Converse sneakers; he appears for all intents and purposes to be remarkably unremarkable. After a quick handshake followed by an awkward “we don’t know each other” hug, we sit down.

The thing is, I do know McManus, but he doesn't know me. In addition to my online research, I’ve been to various Mosaic services, both at the Mayan Nightclub (10th & Hill, Sundays, 7pm) and the Westside gatherings (Beverly Hills High, Sundays 11:15am). I’ve even read a couple of his books (sue me, I read a lot).

However, I certainly didn’t expect to find the title of “pastor” bothersome to him. That was, until I was told by a volunteer during a recent visit to a Mosaic Westside service (the date of our originally scheduled interview) that I should refrain from referring to him as such. “He hates being called Pastor,” she warned. Perfect. A church leader who doesn’t like being called "pastor." If this is true, he’ll soon be added to my “You’re Nuts” list, too.

“I do,” he says, when I ask him point blank if he hates it. “It does not reflect who I am.”

“Well, I have to call you something. Should I call you the 'Big Man on Campus?' What do you prefer to be called?”

“Erwin.”

Oh for crying out loud. Not only does he look normal, but he sounds normal too, I press on.

“So you’re the lead speaker at Mosaic. You just love speaking?”

“I guess. I’m actually, socially very shy, but if I can help people process some of the painful and difficult issues of life to get somewhere that’s really healthy, that’s what I love. If I take the time to speak for one hour, I can do ten thousand hours worth of helping.” McManus doesn’t do “one hour of speaking” though, and I point this out to him. He shrugs and acknowledges that on any given Sunday he actually speaks three hours a day, beginning at 9:30am at William Carey University (Mosaic's Pasadena campus), followed by the Beverly Hills service, and finally at the Mayan Nightclub downtown.

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