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" Opposition is an inevitable reality of pastoral life. "

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" Amusement is a way of boredom-avoidance through external stimulation that fails to exercise our minds. It's mere diversion. "

" Nobody lives up to the norms that God had in mind when he first created human beings. "

" There are usually multiple messages that could be preached from the same text. "

" Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, life and death, love and hate. No other story has incarnated those themes more than the story of Jesus. "

" For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. "

" Pastors have historically understood their primary battle to be not the battle to build a big church, but the battle against the power of sin. "

" A simple way to address hidden curriculum issues is to spend time talking with staff and key leaders about their spiritual lives. "

" In my love-challenged condition, seeing a difficulty for someone else can leave me feeling a little more smug or superior-by-comparison. "

" One of the reasons I'm an interesting person to be married to is my intensely late-blooming self-awareness. "

" Far more books get written about how to get more people in your church than how to get the people already in your church to have more humility and sincere love. "

" Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto. "

" Tithing is considerably less popular than words like generosity or sharing. "

" As a preacher, my charge is to proclaim the message of the Scriptures. To help the people in my congregation become a people of the book. I love getting to do this. "

" As much as we complain about it, though, there's part of us that is drawn to a hurried life. It makes us feel important. It keeps the adrenaline pumping. It means I don't have to look too closely at my heart or life. It keeps us from feeling our loneliness. "

" I need an inspiration that is grounded in reality while thoroughly transcendent. "

" Real spiritual authority has to do with the truth of the actual words being spoken, and the spirit of the person behind the words. Really, authority is about truth: honest-living truth. "

" I am a political junkie. During a presidential campaign, I will often buy a couple of newspapers a day just to keep up. "

" Jesus viewed his own destiny - to be glorified in and through death - as an expression of a kind of cosmic principle: the pathway to life runs through death. "

" We call an obsession with having someone's approval 'co-dependency;' the Bible's word for it is idolatry. A country can be an idol. A family can be an idol. "

" Learning something new is a fabulous way to be refreshed. When work can grind you down, something about learning a new activity thrills the soul. It reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk and your to-do list. "

" At the heart of Christian faith is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. "

" Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures. "

" When someone is in crisis, don't start by teaching, leveraging, or explaining. Just be with. "

" Sin is protean. It is a cancer that keeps mutating, and just when you think you have killed off one form, it turns out a deadlier strain yet is threatening your heart. "

" Prudence is not the same thing as caution. Caution is a helpful strategy when you're crossing a minefield; it's a disaster when you're in a gold rush. "

" God has entrusted us with his most precious treasure - people. He asks us to shepherd and mold them into strong disciples, with brave faith and good character. "

" People with the strongest and healthiest sense of calling are not obsessed with their calling. They are preoccupied with the Caller. "

" There are no clear boundary lines between what is physiological, what is psychological, and what is spiritual. Those are language domains that make sense and have integrity but overlap significantly. "

" Although the church has often been far too slow to follow his lead, Jesus' insistence that women, as well as men, bear the full image of God has had a way of sparking reform movements across the centuries. "

" My main job is to live with deep contentment, joy, and confidence in my everyday experience of life with God. Everything else is job number two. "