Our mandate in Habitat for Humanity is to work diligently to help bring into being graceful communities, towns, and cities. his is so important because the alternative is disgraceful. We must begin to think like this. If we do, we will increasingly see transformations in our communities.

We want to make it socially, morally, politically and religiously unacceptable to have substandard housing and homelessness.

What Habitat does is much more than just sheltering people. It’s what it does for people on the inside. It’s that intangible quality of hope. Many people without decent housing consider themselves life’s losers. This is the first victory they may have ever had. And it changes them. We see Habitat homeowners go back to school and get their GEDs, enter college, do all kinds of things they never believed they could do before they moved into their house. By their own initiative, through their own pride and hope, they change.

Faith without works is as dead as a doornail.

Nobody loves a good worship service more than I do, but we are called to make religion real, to make our faith come alive. Helping others have a decent place to live is one way to do that and it doesn't take too long for others to recognize it, too.

For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.

Faith must become more than a verbal proclamation or an intellectual assent. True faith must be acted out.