The church exists primarily for two closely correlated purposes: to worship God and to work for his kingdom in the world ... The church also exists for a third purpose, which serves the other two: to encourage one another, to build one another up in faith, to pray with and for one another, to learn from one another and teach one another, and to set one another examples to follow, challenges to take up, and urgent tasks to perform. This is all part of what is known loosely as fellowship.

Of course there are people who think of 'heaven' as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that's a problem as old as the human race.

When Jesus's followers asked him to teach them to pray, he didn't tell them to divide into focus groups and look deep within their own hearts.

The rule of love, I say again, is not an optional extra. It is the very essence of what we [Christians] are about

Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole Scripture is about heaven coming to earth.

I'm a people person. I like being with people. So I like being a teacher, and so on.

When it became clear that in fact my father was saying, "It will be interesting to see what you want to do when you grow up," I realized that there was no pressure on that front. And I remember huge relief: Hey, I can go and do what I really know I have to do!