I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated. It's certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized — folks who didn't have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior.

I think we've misinterpreted some of the scriptures to justify the death penalty. So whereas a lot of folks in America feel like we can do far better justice  -  it's more expensive to do the death penalty than the alternatives  -  there's so many reasons that people come to the conclusion to abolish the death penalty.

Money has power. And so withholding money has power too, especially when a bunch of people do it together.

When you look at the Bible, and I read the Bible very seriously, for a lot of my life, I believed the Bible ordained the death penalty, and the Bible seemed to be very clear about that. But the more I look, the more troubled I became because it's not that simple. In the Bible, there's some 30 death-worth crimes, like working on the Sabbath, or disrespecting your parents. Are we that fundamental that we should bring back that death penalty?

All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe.

It is the church's job, as Dr. [Martin Luther] King says, to be the conscience of the state, not the chaplain of the state.

We're not church planters. We are community planters and, as we work in our communities, we join local churches.