“Most of the church landscape in my lifetime has been heavily invested in trying to do something for Jerry or Sherri or some other icon of unchurchness. The problem is that they have been only about themselves from the moment they could wail for their mothers, and the decision to give them at church what they can find in any self-help book appears now as a choice to abandon the One in whose honor the church gathers. What they need is to be set free from themselves with finality and to be lost in the awesome wonder of the manifest presence of God. It was never God’s desire that He would sit on the sideline and watch us frantically devise impressive ways to reach people or simply hold the line on orthodoxy as though faithfulness can exist in a vacuum apart from fruitfulness. God is the Matter of first importance! Can you say that about your current weekly encounter with church?”

“Most of the church landscape in my lifetime has been heavily invested in trying to do something for Jerry or Sherri or some other icon of unchurchness. The problem is that they have been only about themselves from the moment they could wail for their mothers, and the decision to give them at church what they can find in any self-help book appears now as a choice to abandon the One in whose honor the church gathers. What they need is to be set free from themselves with finality and to be lost in the awesome wonder of the manifest presence of God. It was never God’s desire that He would sit on the sideline and watch us frantically devise impressive ways to reach people or simply hold the line on orthodoxy as though faithfulness can exist in a vacuum apart from fruitfulness. God is the Matter of first importance! Can you say that about your current weekly encounter with church?”

“Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half as persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way”

“Whether you realize it or not, your ongoing battle with unbelief drives all your sinful thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions.”

“All the stories and poems and letters and oracles and wisdom verses of God's Word, like individual instruments in a great orchestra, serve THE WHOLE story.”

“What you hope for determines what you live for. What you hope for determines WHO you live for. Hope misplaced can devastate you.”

“In counseling, we don't simply help people to change one thought; we help people to understand the pattern of their thinking – their mindsets.”

“Pride rises above and against the knowledge of God, acting as if He is unworthy to be retained in our thoughts.”

“I experience transcendence when something infinite reminds me I am finite.”

“Church leaders raised on rationalism lead ministries where the supernatural, the Vertical, is suppressed and where God Himself is at best an observer and certainly seldom, if ever, and obvious participant in church.”

“Let God Himself be the main attraction at church again, and let us be tireless in our insistence that church is for God, about God, through God, and to the glory of His great Son.”

“In a society where rationality has ruled so long, the church frequently fails to see that in forsaking the weekly pursuit of the transcendent, we have given up the only ground that was uniquely ours in this world. In attempting to make the church something that can attract and add value to secular mind-sets, we have turned our backs on our one true proposition - transcendence.”