In my internet travels I came across a link to this interview with Eugene Peterson from 1997. His writings have been foundational and life changing for me. I also know several pastors whose ministries have been salvaged and renewed by reading books like ‘The Contemplative Pastor’, ‘Working the Angles’ and ‘Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work.’
Many people consider him to be controversial for his ‘Message’ translation of the Bible. Although that translation isn’t my first choice, you have to respect a man who has wrestled with the text of Scripture to the point of translating them from the original languages into English. He is intimately acquainted with God’s revelation and from this springs a uniquely clear and comprehensive vision of the essence of the Pastoral ministry.
Check out a few select questions and answers from a great 1997 interview in Christianity Today:
Then study starts to erode. You cannot go to a pulpit week after week and preach truth accurately without constant study. Our minds blur on us, and we need that constant sharpening of our minds. And without study, without the use of our mind in a disciplined way, we are sitting ducks for the culture.
This culture is an evil culture. This culture is the enemy. Through the media, through friends, through conversations we’re constantly fed lies, and like most lies, they’re 90 percent the truth. So you swallow the lie, and subtly, the edge of the gospel is blunted; you think you’re preaching the gospel, and you’re not. You don’t even know it.
So the first task in providing pastoral care is to pray and to study the Word.
Who’s going to do that except the pastor? People in the congregation are busy in their jobs, reading their periodicals and attending their conferences. It’s my job to be suspicious of the culture. I’m not a culture critic, but to be a pastor, I cannot be seduced by the world. This becomes increasingly difficult in this so-called postmodern time. If you’re not sharp, you’re on the Devil’s side without knowing it.
A student was telling me he saw a video on Michael Jordan. He said, “Michael Jordan looks so lazy. He looks like he’s not doing anything. Then suddenly, he’s through three people, and he’s slam-dunking the ball.”
As a pastor, how do you slip through the opposition and make your point? You do it by being lazy—or what looks like being lazy—sitting in your study for half a day reading a book that doesn’t have anything to do with your sermon.
As a pastor I’ve got a responsibility to be alert to my culture so that my congregation is not seduced. If I don’t do it, nobody will.
Most congregations don’t think they’re paying pastors to do that.
That’s true. But they’re not the ones who give me my job description.
I get my job description from the Scriptures, from my ordination vows. If I let the congregation decide what I’m going to do, I’m as bad as a doctor who prescribes drugs on request. Medical societies throw out doctors for doing that kind of thing; we need theological societies to throw out pastors for doing the same thing.
And if you give up prayer and study, you will soon give up the third area: people.
Many lay people come to their pastors and say, “Why don’t we have such-and-such a program?” Do they really want their church to be “a place of being”?
It’s odd: We live in this so-called postmodernist time, and yet so much of the public image of the church is this rational, management-efficient model. If the postmodernists are right, that model is passe; it doesn’t work any more. In that sense, I find myself quite comfortably postmodern. I think pastors need to cultivate “unbusyness.” I use that word a lot.
My father was a butcher. When he delivered meat to restaurants, he would sit at the counter, have a cup of coffee and piece of pie, and waste time. But that time was critical for building relationships, for doing business.
Sometimes I’m with pastors who don’t wander around. They don’t waste time. Their time is too valuable. They run to the tomb, and it’s empty, so they run back. They never see resurrection. Meanwhile, Mary’s wasting time; she’s wandering around.
To be unbusy, you have to disengage yourself from egos—both yours and others—and start dealing with souls. Souls cannot be hurried.
If I were to walk into a church, what would tip me off that it was concerned about meeting needs or about “dealing with souls”?
Some of this you don’t notice right away.
I would be wary of a church that was over-glamorous, that promised a lot. I have no objection to finding all the ways you can to get a hearing. Sometimes that means helping people get their kid off drugs. So I’m not saying we shouldn’t respond to people’s needs, but the rock-bottom thing is “Repent and follow.” My job as pastor is to call people to repent, deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus.
If I revise “Repent!” to “How I can help you get your life in order?” I’m turning away from the gospel. If I take the “Follow” part out and say, “We’ll find out how you can live your life best the way you define it,” who needs Jesus?
Sometimes I feel like a backwoods fundamentalist or somebody carrying a sign around Times Square that says repent. But I’ve been a pastor for thirty-five years, and I don’t trust people one inch in defining what they need. We don’t know ourselves. We need God to tell us what we need.
For me, being a pastor means being attentive to people. But the minute I start taking my cues from them, I quit being a pastor.
Wow, I wish more pastors would listen to what this man has to say.
