What does spiritual strength look like? Over the past few months, I've come across many examples.

It looks like the preacher, diagnosed with an incurable cancer, who tells his congregation, "For the last twenty years, I've tried to show you how a Christian lives. For the next year, or however long God gives me, my ministry is to show you how a Christian dies."

It looks like the ministry director who notices marital stresses affecting a leadership couple, and she bravely speaks to them directly about her observations and concern, and gently offers her help and her prayers.

It looks like the pastor who weighs an invitation to a "wider ministry" but decides to remain and give full attention to the church he has come to love.

Yet it also looks like the pastor who leaves his comfortable congregation in response to inner promptings from God to build a church in a largely unchurched area.

It looks like that pastor's family, who agree to uproot and follow him across the country because they believe ...