My job as a pastor and theologian is to tease out the nature and the necessity of the gospel in meticulous ways, in everything I say, in everything I like. I want desperately for the church in America to rediscover the power and the beauty and the nature and the necessity of the gospel.

The cross [is] the ultimate statement of God's involvement in the world on this side of heaven.

There's nothing like suffering to reveal how small and needy you are. Pain has the remarkable capacity to reveal the weakness of the things you're leaning on to make life worth living.

An identity based in the one-way love of God does not take into account public opinion or, thankfully, even personal opinion.

If people knew the REAL us, they would run. God knows, stays, and loves.

I think there is tribalism is a big deal inside of the church, that the church thinks of themselves as a tribe and not a mission.

When we depend on anything smaller than God to provide us with the security, significance, meaning, and value that we long for, God will love us enough to take it away. Much of our anger and bitterness, therefore, is God prying open our hands and taking away something we've held onto more tightly than him.