I thought that Christian was a noun, a person looking for authenticity. I never understood that idea that a band could be Christian or something could be Christian. But it just can be and is.

Freedom is not having everything we crave, it's being able to go without the things we crave and being OK with it.

It's as if Thomas Kinkade and Dante were at a party, and one turned to the other sometime after midnight and uttered that classic line "You know, we really should work together sometime.

To elevate abstract doctrines and dogmas over living, breathing, embodied experiences of God's love and grace, then, is going the wrong direction. It's taking flesh and turning it back into words.

It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance.

I got into pastoring because of the art form. I started a church, but I felt the art form needed to be freed for all people. A particular religion over others was never interesting to me. I wanted to talk to people about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody.