Giving Spiritual Guidance
Eugene H. Peterson
Pastoring in the twentieth century requires two things: One, to be a pastor, and two, to run a church. They aren't the same thing.
Eugene H. Peterson
T
he pastor is not precisely like any other leader — not ceo, not physician, not attorney, not social worker. The pastor rightly marches to a different drumbeat.
And that's the challenge for pastors who lead. They cannot march lockstep with the methods of corporations and secular nonprofit organizations. No one outside the pastorate fully understands its own unique cadence.
In his twenty-four years as pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, Eugene Peterson has done a lot of thinking about pastoral work: What is it? What keeps us from it? How is it done?
The answers? Eugene doesn't know if there are hard and fast answers, but he agreed to talk about the problems.
Eugene developed his approach to pastoring from scriptural study and personal experience, and he explains it in his well-crafted Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (John Knox), and his many articles for leadership.
He's a man who reads mysteries, runs marathons, goes for long hikes in the woods with his wife — and who doggedly applies himself to the essentials of pastoral work.
How did you develop your view of the pastoral role?
One of the worst years I ever had was in the early days of this church. Our building was finished, and I realized I wasn't being a pastor. I was so locked into running the church program I didn't have time to be a pastor. So I went to the Session one night to resign. "I'm not doing what I came here to do," I said. "I'm unhappy, and I'm never at home."
The precipitating event was when one of my kids said, "You haven't spent an evening at home for thirty-two days." She had ...
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