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

Stories are verbal acts of hospitality.

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.

American culture is probably the least Christian culture that we've ever had because it is so materialistic and it's so full of lies. The whole advertising world is just, it's just intertwined with lies, appealing to the worst of the instincts we have.

Spirituality is no different from what weve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. Its just ordinary stuff.

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.

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