Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

Good People Do Things For Other People. That's It. The End.

As a pastor, you get invited into the most poignant moments of people's lives. Whether it's a wedding or a funeral or a hospital visit, you get invited into the center of the event, whether or not you know the people.

The successful evangelist does not stand aloof from the experience of sinners, passing easy judgment on them, praying for them from a distance; on the contrary, she loves them so much that she joins them and deigns to walk in their shoes and feel the texture of their experience.

It's easy enough to notice how often dysfunctional families and societies finally collapse into an orgy of mutual blaming. That's satanic work.

I like friends who, when you tell them you need a moment alone, know enough not to stray too far.

Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is a winding path walked arm in arm.

I nod to a passing stranger, and the stranger nods back, and two human beings go off, feeling a little less anonymous.

If you haven't time to respond to a tug at your pants leg, your schedule is too crowded.

Never point a finger where you never lent a hand.

Act always from a sense of common humanity, and let God judge if it be charity.

Sometimes the answer to our prayers is to become the answer to someone else's prayers.