“One thing that helps to stretch me is to listen to other preacher's se...” — Adam Hamilton Quote

One thing that helps to stretch me is to listen to other preacher's sermons. Every year, I will listen to at least ten other preachers, both to hear God speak to me, and also to evaluate their preaching to see what I can learn and how I can improve my own preaching.

God's role in superintending our world and our lives is neither absentee landlord nor micromanager.

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment.

God seeks to influence humanity. This is at the heart of the Christmas story. It is the story of light coming into the darkness, of a Savior to show us the way, of light overcoming the darkness, of God's work to save the world.

You get in trouble, you have to evaluate: Is it worth getting into trouble again? It's a lot easier to make that decision when you have a career at stake.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

It's one thing to evaluate a woman's work. it's another thing to say, 'Your hair was this; your makeup was that.'

I firmly believe that we must evaluate, explore and encourage new ideas with an open mind.

I've learned, but we're constantly trying to learn and evaluate from every situation I've been in.