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.

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.

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

There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would by a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations.

When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.

Sloth is most often evidenced in busyness ... in frantic running around, trying to be everything to everyone, and then having no time to listen or pray, no time to become the person who is doing these things.

Prayer is the disciplined refusal to act before God acts.