That's the whole spiritual life. It's learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love.

Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.

Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God; it whets our appetite.

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

The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.

Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church. I say sooner.

If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.