“The pastor’s question is, “Who are these particular people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?” My job is simply to be there, teaching, preaching Scripture as well as I can, and being honest with them, not doing anything to interfere with what the Spirit is shaping in them. Could God be doing something that I never even thought of? Am I willing to be quiet for a day, a week, a year?”
-The Contemplative Pastor (Introduction)
Tag Archives: Eugene Peterson
Eugene Peterson on pastoring
22 DecThe Jesus Way – Review
13 Mar
Just a few moments ago I finished the third book in Eugene Peterson’s Current series of writings. The Jesus Way is a challenging and thought provoking book that goes into great detail Exploring first of all what Jesus meant by “I am the Way . . .”
Peterson describes the power behind metaphor and particularly the way metaphor in a way that my english teachers wish they could communicate. He looks at how Jesus’ way is an invitation to participate in the movement of God, and to participate with Jesus in the redemption and restoration of the world.
from there Peterson looks at the ways that lead up to Jesus. Using the Examples of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and Isaiah peterson shows how each one of these leaders and prophets embraced their role in pointing to Jesus. Each chapter really has a theme that is explored in great detail (Abraham – Sacrifce, Moses – Bringer of the Words of God, etc.) These chapters are particulary profound.
After looking at Jesus ancient predecessors, he turns to three of the major figures that surrounded Jesus’ life and contrasted them to Jesus and the Jesus Way of life. Herdod in his desire to be great. Ciaphas and his desire to create a God System that benefited him, And Josephus and his desire to use the Zealotry of his fellow Jews to advance himself politically, at the cost of his fellow Jews’ freedoms.
This book is worth the read. I’ve had it for a while and finally got it done. This reading one book at a time resolution has been quite helpful for me personally. It is a little wordy and heady but I could tell that Peterson was doing his very best to put as much power into every word that he could muster. I underlined a ton of passages, and this is a book that I will have to digest over time.
It’s also a great resource if you are looking to do a Character Study on any of the OT characters mentioned. The David chapter will be very helpful to me as I prepare for an upcoming study on David for our youth group.
So read the Jesus Way and I think you will be pleased, challenged, and encouraged.
Perfectionism Quote from The Jesus Way
3 MarRead this passage this morning from The Jesus Way and had to share it.
The Way of David it the way of imperfection. The story David lived and the psalms he prayed provide us with an imagination that is capable of understanding the operations of God to do his perfect work in us, not our capacities to perfect ourselves. The stories tell us that nothing abou us, whether good or bad, is without significance; the prayers tell us that everything within us, whether good or bad, has to do whit God. The stories and prayers together free us from a role and performance mentality, free us from the perfectionist expectations of others and perfectionist ambitions we set for ourselves. If we believingly take in what is given to us in the stories and prayers of David, we are inoculated against the soul-debilitating germ of perfectionism.
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Perfectionist talk and perfectionist illusions are generated by that fast-talking master of illusion, the “angel of light’ St. Paul warns us about (2 Cor 11.14).
To live in grace knowing that God loves and utilizes our lives even though we are imperfect is amazing. When we look at David he’s the hero of much of the Bible and he was a jacked up imperfect person, but he knew that forgiveness and grace could be found in the love and mercy of YAHWEH. And in Jesus we have that love and mercy extended to us. How Amazing!
Of particular impact when I was reading this was the freedom from “role and performance mentality”. As a pastor I try so hard to build something that is “successful” but Jesus loves me no matter what. If I try something that fail, he still loves me. It’s his church, it’s his student ministry, it’s his. He has entrusted me to do my best and point people to him, and that’s what I’m doing.
Jesus called me to teach people about Him and His incredible grace. So that’s what I’m going to be about. As long as I am sticking to his call on my life, then that is success. What mission has Jesus given you? Are you stickin’ to it? Or are you trying to do the role and performance thing? That’s really dissapointing in the long run. Trust me.
The Jesus Way and Practicing Greatness
13 FebI am participating in a Cohort with Youth leaders in my region. Our first meeting is on Feb 25th, and there is some pre-reading required. So if I am going to read one book at a time in keeping with my new years resolution, I will have to put The Jesus Way on hold for now. It’s been pretty hard to get into The Jesus Way, so this is not a heartbreaker for me. Though I have found some great nuggets of wisdom so far.
But the book that I’ve got to get done is called Practicing Greatness, so far incredible. I will have a complete review as soon as I finish it.
Eat This Book – Review
10 Oct
Eugene Peterson, author/editor of The Message, is in the middle of a five book series on Christian Theology, the first book in the series was Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, the second is Eat This Book.Eat This Book is a study in Spiritual Reading, particularly the practice of Lectio Divina. Peterson shows that the Bible is not meant to be a snack-bite, sound bite, fortune cookie experience, rather it is supposed to be a meal that nurishes our soul and transforms our lives.One of the most intersting parts of this book is in the third part where Peterson does a quick study of how we got the Bible, discovery of paprii and translations to greek and all that. This is a very interesting section that shows how amazing a book the Bible really is.At times it seems that Peterson gets a little overly scholarly but overall this is a great read for anyone who would like a little help making the Bible a more vital part of their lives.
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