My answer to a friend: There is no success in ministry, only service and moments of celebration. If you choose to minister, expect to be misunderstood. All of the pain people carry will fall upon your brow, and you shall be the stand-in for every ignorant statement...
If I ever stand in a pulpit and insinuate that God's political views and mine are perfectly aligned, I can be very sure that I have downsized the Deity and shattered the second commandment, the pesky one about not creating idols.
The story of Christianity didn't take shape behind pulpits or on altars or in books. No, the story of Christianity takes shape around tables, as people face one another as equals, telling stories, sharing memories, enjoying food with one another. from Table to Table
[1987 - extemporaneous response to someone's public objection of her being allowed to preach] While we are in this place debating about who can or cannot stand behind a piece of wood, there's a world out there. And the cries of that world are growing louder. There's a...
I am sometimes amazed, even alarmed, at the extent to which people judge ministers by their preaching, and preaching by its rhetoric. To do so is to make the entirely spurious but nearly universal assumption that God is better served by a poet than by an accountant....