To believe is not intellectual assent: "Yes, I believe in Jesus. I will sign my name to the Nicene Creed. I believe it all" - which you could do, [but] it would have no effect on who you were or what you did. It is, rather, to give your heart.

It's all so verbal in the Protestant church. You've heard these words a million times before. Maybe people are leaving the church because they find the church has nothing that they're looking for.

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

We are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our lives but reactors, to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running the strongest.

Words spoken in deep love or deep hate set things in motion in the human heart that can never be reversed.

Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.

Preaching and writing - it's the same. Whether I'm writing to speak or writing to be read in a book, it's the same thing.