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" The New Testament doesn't present Jesus as a single man to cover up his humanity. It presents him as a single man because... he was a single man. "

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" A bad sermon is like a car wreck - everyone slows down to see what happened. "

" In community, we discover who we really are and how much transformation we still require. This is why I am irrevocably committed to small groups. Through them, we can accomplish our God-entrusted work to transform human beings. "

" The only true and lasting inspiration for life is genuine love for God, and submitted gratitude that I get to be a part of the redemptive quest. "

" Sin is, somehow, at the root of all human misery. Sin is what keeps us from God and from life. It is in the face of every battered woman, the cry of every neglected child, the despair of every addict, the death of every victim of every war. "

" The church is in the hope business. "

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

" Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience. "

" Tithing is a bad ceiling but an excellent floor. "

" When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part. "

" I have given up the idea that there is an opposition-free church out there. But I have gained something else - an appreciation for the gift of opposition. When it comes, I learn something about my motives. When it comes, I get to test my courage. "

" Politics, after all, is largely about power. And power goes to the core of our issues of control and narcissism and need to be right and tendency to divide the human race into 'us' vs. 'them.' "

" Prudence is foresight and far-sightedness. It's the ability to make immediate decisions on the basis of their longer-range effects. "

" I have always heard that you need to give yourself a long time to unplug when you do a sabbatical. I unplugged so fast I was a little concerned that I was losing brain capacity. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Evil exists. Evil is real. One of the hallmarks of evil is that it seeks to convince its victims that it exists 'out there.' "

" I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift. "

" In the context of worship, amusement is a waste of time and a waste of life, and therefore a form of sin. "

" I don't have a problem with delegation. I love to delegate. I am either lazy enough, or busy enough, or trusting enough, or congenial enough, that the notion leaving tasks in someone else's lap doesn't just sound wise to me, it sounds attractive. "

" The human longings that are deep inside of us never go away. They exist across cultures; they exist throughout life. When people were first made, our deepest longing was to know and be known. And after the Fall, when we all got weird, it's still our deepest longing - but it's now also our deepest fear. "

" 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. "

" I wrote 'Soul Keeping' because we are taught more about how to care for our cars than how to steward our souls. But you cannot have an impactful life with an impoverished soul. "

" To have my mind racing and my heart beating fast over glorious possibilities is very close to the summit of life experience for me. "

" 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. "

" Opposition is an inevitable reality of pastoral life. "

" As a preacher who is fully human, and clearly not divine, I can't speak as Jesus did. But I do seek to speak truth that carries weight and authority. All of us who preach the gospel aspire to speak under the authority of Jesus. "

" 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. "

" Gratitude is what we radiate when we experience grace, and the soul was made to run on grace the way a 747 runs on rocket fuel. "

" The soul is both the most fragile and most resilient thing about you; a healthy soul is what holds you together when your world falls apart. Since you will carry your soul into eternity, it's worth checking up on it at least as often as your teeth. "

" Death is the prerequisite to resurrection, the new life God intends. "