When I teach the formal curriculum, I have the chance to think about it ahead of time. I can rehearse it. I can illustrate it with self-deprecating humor and humble-sounding personal disclosure. I can try to make it comes out just right.

Failure does not shape you; the way you respond to failure shapes you.

If you want to do the work of God, pay attention to people. Notice them. Especially the people nobody else notices.

We who preach have one tool. We are people of the book.

For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.

Waiting on the Lord is a confident, disciplined, expectant, active, sometimes painful clinging to God.

Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience.