Pastors enter congregations vocationally in order to embrace the totality of human life in Jesus' name. We are convinced there is no detail, however unpromising, in people's lives in which Christ may not work his will. Pastors agree to stay with the people in their communities week in and week out, year in and year out, to proclaim and guide, encourage and instruct as God work his purposes (gloriously, it will eventually turn out) in the meandering and disturbingly inconstant lives of our congregations.This necessarily means taking seriously, and in faith, the dull routines, the empty boredom, and the unattractive responsibilities that make up much of most people's lives. It means witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain. It means living hopefully among people who from time to time get flickering glimpses of the Glory but then live through stretches, sometimes long ones, of unaccountable grayness. Most pastor work takes place in obscurity: deciphering grace in the shadows, searching out meaning in a difficult text, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life. This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.
About This Quote
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