"When the simple -- though sublime -- statement is made by a man or woman that 'The Lord is my shepherd,' it immediately links a lump of common clay to divine destiny -- it means a mere mortal becomes the cherished object of divine diligence."
"Miracles are hard for us to wrap our heads around in our modern world. The Gospels make it clear that miracles were a vital part to the ministry of Jesus."
"The soul that truly loves God will want to do what God loves."
"I gazed at the class -- Cowboy Jeremy, Superman Peter, and the rest of my remarkable 5-year-old charges. They were teaching me everything I needed to know about facing daily challenges and being a successful teacher: forgive quickly, love unconditionally, visualize your future, live each day with gusto, and take frequent naps."
"A knowledge of the cultural history of India is imperative in understanding Hinduism."
"The sad truth is that too little difference exists, in terms of emotional and relational maturity, between God's people inside the church and those outside who claim no relationship to Jesus Christ."
"Most witchcraft today is part of the contemporary neo-pagan movement, which is part of the occult."
"If we want to help our teenagers develop a heart for service, sometimes one of the best things we can do is to get them out of their comfort zones and encourage them to look beyond their high school lives to see the bigger world 'out there.'"
"Memoir is as much about the present as it is about the past. I do not remember in order to recall who I was; I remember to discover who I have become."
"The proper ground of our knowing Christianity to be true is the inner work of the Holy Spirit in our individual selves; and in our showing Christianity to be true (in the form of rational arguments and evidence), it is his role to open the hearts of unbelievers to assent and respond to the reasons we present."
"I straightened up, and there she was. Standing there, looking right at me, was a slender, hazel-eyed movie starlet! I said something polite, but I was flustered and embarrassed. It took me a month to muster the courage to ask Ruth Bell out for a date."
"The danger in the game of life is that we forget to ask what really matters. We race around the board with shallow relationships, frenzied schedules, preoccupied souls. Being smart or strong does not protect you from this fate. In some ways, it makes the game more dangerous, for the temporary rewards you get from playing can lull you into pretending that the game will never end."
"Our presuppositions shape our perspective, our perspective shapes our priorities, and our priorities shape our practice."
"My hope is that all leaders in the kingdom will commit themselves to fully developing their leadership potential."
"The gift most essential to the creation of spoken worship is the gift of empathy, and time and energy invested in this gift will be richly rewarded when it comes to both the composition and the delivery of spoken worship."
"Christ doesn't talk much about happiness, but I see the promise of joy repeated constantly throughout the New Testament."
"We as Christians today are not only to consider what it means to be a 21st century church, but also -- and perhaps more importantly -- what it means to have a 21st century faith."
"He was a highly accompolished scholar, perhaps already the most accomplished on the Oxford English faculty. He had written fiction too, but of a highly intellectual character; a bachelor with no children of his own, he had relatively few friends whose children he knew. He would not seem to be a likely candidate to be writing a children's book."
"Life isn't all bad, dangerous, hazardous, and brimming with imminent disease, disaster, or death -- even if a steady diet of the daily paper or evening news would have you think so."
"Volunteers should be reminded, again and again, that they're valued; that what they're doing is part of the redemptive drama that's been going throughout human history; that the role they are playing is not insignificant; that God treasures every task they perform, every hour of service they render."
