My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.

Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.

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.

The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment.

No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.

Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.