The shift in American society from admiring Christians to fearing and criticizing them provides an opportunity for self-reflection. How have we been presenting the message we believe in? Might there be a more grace-filled way?

The more we love, and the more unlikely people we love, the more we resemble God - who, after all, loves ornery creatures like us.

Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.

Prayer enters the pool of God's love and widens outward.

If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.

What would a church look like that created space for quietness, that bucked the celebrity trend and unplugged from noisy media, that actively resisted our consumer culture? What would worship look like if we directed it more toward God than toward our own amusement?

Prayer is a place where God and humans meet.