Somehow we American pastors, without really noticing what was happening, got our vocations redefined in the terms of American careerism. We quit thinking of the parish as a location for pastoral spirituality and started thinking of it as an opportunity for advancement. Tarshish, not Nineveh, was the destination. The moment we did that, we started thinking wrongly, for the vocation of pastor has to do with living out the implications of the word of God in community, not sailing off into the exotic seas of religion in search of fame and fortune.

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About Eugene H. Peterson

Eugene H. Peterson was a 20th-century American author and translator. Eugene Hoiland Peterson was an American Presbyterian minister, scholar, theologian, author, and poet. He wrote more than 30 books, including the Gold Medallion Book Award–winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, an idiomatic paraphrasing commentary and translation of the Bible into modern American English using a dynamic equivalence translation approach. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Leadership — Guiding others with vision, integrity, and purpose

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