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My experience as a pastor is lots of people have really toxic, dangerous, psychologically devastating images of God in their head, images of a God who's not good.

If people don't know their pastor, it's easy to put the pastor on a pedestal and depersonalize him or her. It's also easy for pastors, who don't know their congregations, simply to classify congregants as saved or unsaved, involved or not involved, tithers or non-tithers.

Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people's lives, and you ruin your own life.

Pastors can lead the way in motivating the faithful to wise stewardship of their citizenship responsibilities. Without a healthy culture and civil society, limited government and ordered liberty will be impossible.

Sometimes in churches somebody will discover a particular vein of spirituality and seek to recruit others into it, or assume a superior position because they have found certain techniques - but no one actually wants to become like them.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world - not to win them, but to be like them.

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

Being a pastor is pressure because we have to counsel people.

The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.