The church's job is to equip the saints for works of service in the world.

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning so glorious -- all my achievements meant nothing in God's economy. "No, the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure -- that I was an ex-convict. My greatest humiliation -- being sent to prison -- was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life; He chose the one thing in which I could not glory for His glory.

True tolerance is not a total lack of judgment. It's knowing what should be tolerated, and refusing to tolerate that which shouldn't.

If our culture is to be transformed, it will happen from the bottom up - from ordinary believers practicing apologetics over the backyard fence or around the barbecue grill.

The life function of [the local church] is to love the God who created it - to care for others out of obedience to Christ, to heal those who hurt, to take away fear, to restore community, to belong to one another, to proclaim the Good News while living it out. The church is the invisible made visible.

Our society's obsession with tolerance leads to intolerance. Simply being a Christian today is an offense to our culture.

Some say society must change in order to change people. No, people must be changed in order to change society.