Brian Layman

“In short, a spiritual teacher needs to inject conflict into a disciple’s life. Without conflict, we remain at levels of immaturity and don’t grow spiritually. The conflict is likely asking us the question, “When are you going to grow up?” Jesus was consistently challenging his disciples by confronting them with their levels of immaturity. Within congregational life, there needs to be a kind of psychological contract between pastor and people that “sometimes I’m going to make you quite uncomfortable in my sermons and in my personal conversations with you.” We should not accept spiritual messages that just always make us feel good about ourselves—a feel-good gospel. That is going to keep us stuck at immature levels of self-insight. In order for congregations to grow, both numerically and spiritually, we will need to experience conflict at all levels of congregational life.”
― Roy M Oswald, The Emotional Intelligence of Jesus: Relational Smarts for Religious Leaders

“Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart.”
― Jim Henson

“My heart is pure as the driven slush.”
― Tallulah Bankhead

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”
― Stephen Colbert