The proper focus of holiness is not on being set apart from something (i.e., the world), but on being set apart for something.

Christians are driven by God's promises, and directed by God's purposes.

The key to maturity is time and community. Discernment and godly wisdom develop in a community that spans generations. The church is called to be this place where the [God's] Spirit uses normal patterns and rhythms of the Christian life in a community, so that we may bear fruit like a well-watered tree. Despite common appearances, the church is the place where God's new creation is coming into existence and being sustained by the Spirit like a great vineyard.

The power of God unto salvation is not our passion for God, but the passion He has exhibited toward us sinners by sending his own Son to redeem us.

The goal of Christian mission is not success, but faithful witness; not power, but proclamation; not technique, but truth; not method, but message.

God's church is not a stage for us to perform on but a garden for us to grow in.

The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.