I hate how spiritual formation gets positioned as an optional pursuit for a small special interest group within the church.
When preaching is done right, it can change lives. When it's done badly, my failure goes beyond the merely human.
Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue.
Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.
You can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known by somebody.
Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.
Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader.
Sometimes, an inability to believe in Satan reflects a larger inability to believe in a spiritual plane at all.
When people feel they're getting to speak into what's being preached, there is high built-in motivation to participate.
People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller.
To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me.
When someone is in crisis, don't start by teaching, leveraging, or explaining. Just be with.
Amusement is a way of boredom-avoidance through external stimulation that fails to exercise our minds. It's mere diversion.
God has decided, for his own good reasons, that people are not transformed outside of community.
Better to be a loving person without knowing how you got there, than an expert no one can stand to be around.
Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.
You can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known by somebody.
Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel.
It strikes me that presidential campaigns can often bring out the worst as well as the best in us.
Evil exists. Evil is real. One of the hallmarks of evil is that it seeks to convince its victims that it exists 'out there.'