Every call to worship is a call into the Real World.... I encounter such constant and widespread lying about reality each day and meet with such skilled and systematic distortion of the truth that I'm always in danger of losing my grip on reality. The reality, of course, is that God is sovereign and Christ is savior. The reality is that prayer is my mother tongue and the eucharist my basic food. The reality is that baptism, not Myers-Briggs, defines who I am.

I think pastors are the worst listeners. We're so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what's going on, and listen.

Real faith is refined in the fires and storms of pain.

Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.

Waiting means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.

One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.

I get asked, 'What do you miss most about being a pastor?' I think it's the intimacy, the incredible gift of intimacy. You go through death with somebody, with their families, and there's an intimacy that comes through that that is just incomparable.