Pastors need to know what's going on in the world and what has been going on for 4,000 years. We need a way to read Scripture which is imaginative, interpretive.

I didn't write because I had anything to say, but in order to find out what there was to say.

When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what's best - As above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You're in charge!

Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.

Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.