Born on September 4th

"Spiritual formation in a Christian tradition answers a specific human question: 'What kind of person am I going to be?' It is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person. That's all it is."

"Spiritual formation is character formation. Everyone gets a spiritual formation. It's like education. Everyone gets an education; it's just a matter of which one you get."

"God may not guide us in an obvious way because he wants us to make decisions based on faith and character."

"The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons with God himself at the very heart of this community as its prime Sustainer and most glorious Inhabitant."

"What sometimes goes on in all sorts of Christian institutions is not formation of people in the character of Christ; it's teaching of outward conformity. You don't get in trouble for not having the character of Christ, but you do if you don't obey the laws."

"Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love."

"I think that when I die, it might be some time until I know it."

"Reality is what you can count on."

"If you don't have a teacher you can't have a disciple."

"When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success - models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture."

"If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work."

"I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to Heaven, no one will be able to say, 'I merited this.'"

"When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it."

"So many people would like to have guidance from God because obviously, if you have a word from God, it's the best possible thing. But they don't relate that to life as a whole. Often they want guidance as a way of opting out of the responsibility of making decisions."

"'Discipleship' as a term has lost its content, and this is one reason why it has been moved aside. I've tried to redeem the idea of discipleship, and I think it can be done; you have to get it out of the contemporary mode."

"We Christians should be aware that there's something at stake in cultural participation that we wouldn't have been concerned about if all we did was worry about the messages in culture."

"Nobody can stop you but you. And shame on you if you're the one who stops yourself."

"The less food, the more time to talk, the more to talk about."

"My father is a Jehovah's Witness, and he raised us under a very strict hand."

"You've got to want it. I can give you a role. I can't give you a career."

"You know what Bill Cosby did wrong? He started criticizing young black men."

"I was 12 years old when I had my first job, delivering packages."

"And for my family, comedically, that was the key to a lot of the humor."

"But my kids, my brothers' kids - they think about trying to top what we did."

"My greatest production is my children. Then, to see my grandbabies is the gravy."

"And my marriage was perfect when I wasn't famous."

"You have to look yourself in the eye and ask, 'Who are you?' It can't be all about work."

"The beautiful thing about having family that has diabetes is knowing what not to do. I got an uncle that thinks insulin is supposed to enable him to eat cake."

"Some struggle is healthy. If you can embrace it rather than be angry, you can use it as your pilot light."

"The show has become my therapy."