'We really shouldn't look like a church.' I've heard that so much I want to vomit. 'Why?' I ask. 'Do you want your bank to look like a bank? Do you want your doctor's office to look like a doctor's office, or would you prefer your doctor to dress like a clown?'

I think it is important to begin with a statement in your speech that grabs the attention of the audience. I try to make my opening line 15 words or less.

God presents the Sabbath rest as a shelter we can enter. (Hebrews 4:1-11)

Alleged 'impossibilities' are opportunities for our capacities to be stretched.

Laughter is the most beautiful and beneficial therapy God ever granted humanity.

Ours is a bad, bad world, but does that mean nothing's good? Does it mean we have run out of things for which to be grateful? No, no, a thousand times, no!

Without a quest, life is quickly reduced to bleak black and wimpy white, a diet too bland to get anybody out of bed in the morning. A quest fuels our fire. It refuses to let us drift downstream gathering debris.