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The Pastor: A Memoir Paperback – September 18, 2012
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In The Pastor, author Eugene Peterson, translator of the multimillion-selling The Message, tells the story of how he started Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland and his gradual discovery of what it really means to be a pastor. Steering away from abstractions, Peterson challenges conventional wisdom regarding church marketing, mega pastors, and the church’s too-cozy relationship to American glitz and consumerism to present a simple, faith-based description of what being a minister means today. In the end, Peterson discovers that being a pastor boils down to “paying attention and calling attention to ‘what is going on now’ between men and women, with each other and with God.”
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperOne
- Publication dateSeptember 18, 2012
- Dimensions0.91 x 6.12 x 8.82 inches
- ISBN-100061988219
- ISBN-13978-0061988219
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“Eugene Peterson excavates the challenges and mysteries regarding pastors and church and gives me hope for both. This a must read for every person who is or thinks they are called to be a pastor and for every person who has one.” — William Paul Young, author of The Shack
“If anyone knows how to be a pastor in the contemporary context that person is Eugene Peterson. Eugene possesses the rare combination of a pastor’s heart and a pastor’s art. Take and read!” — Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline
“I’ve been nagging Eugene Peterson for years to write a memoir. In our clamorous, celebrity-driven, entertainment culture, his life and words convey a quiet whisper of sanity, authenticity, and, yes, holiness.” — Philip Yancey, author of What Good is God
“A good book for folks who like pastors. And a good book for folks who don’t. The Pastor is the disarming tale of one of the unlikely suspects who has helped shape North American Christianity.” — Shane Claiborne author of The Irresistible Revolution
“More than a gifted writer, Eugene Peterson is a voice calling upon the churches to recover the vocation of the pastor in order to experience the renewing of their faith in the midst of an increasingly commercialized, depersonalized, and spiritually barren land.” — Dale T. Irvin, President, New York Theological Seminary
“If you are hoping to be a pastor, or just to understand what that is, get this book and soak in it for at least three full days with no distraction. It may save your life and make you a blessing.” — Dallas Willard, author of The Divine Conspiracy
“A gift to anyone who has tried answering the call to pastor, and to a church that needs true pastors. . . . It is a subtle manifesto of hope for our time.” — Christianity Today
“Peterson found writing as a way to pay attention, and as an act of prayer. It’s our privilege to have his words, full of insight and truth. This book might be considered a long prayer for pastors.” — Englewood Review of Books
“A book full of much needed wisdom that is written with eloquence.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Peterson is a master storyteller. . . . The Pastor is a profound and important meditation . . . serves as a necessary reaffirmation of the true nature of a calling that in current American religious life seems largely lost.” — Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
From the Back Cover
In The Pastor, Eugene H. Peterson, the translator of the multimillion-selling The Message and the author of more than thirty books, offers his life story as one answer to the surprisingly neglected question: What does it mean to be a pastor?
When Peterson was asked by his denomination to begin a new church in Bel Air, Maryland, he surprised himself by saying yes. And so was born Christ Our King Presbyterian Church. But Peterson quickly learned that he was not exactly sure what a pastor should do. He had met many ministers in his life, from his Pentecostal upbringing in Montana to his seminary days in New York, and he admired only a few. He knew that the job's demands would drown him unless he figured out what the essence of the job really was. Thus began a thirty-year journey into the heart of this uncommon vocation—the pastorate.
The Pastor steers away from abstractions, offering instead a beautiful rendering of a life tied to the physical world—the land, the holy space, the people—shaping Peterson's pastoral vocation as well as his faith. He takes on church marketing, mega pastors, and the church's too-cozy relationship to American glitz and consumerism to present a simple, faith-filled job description of what being a pastor means today. In the end, Peterson discovered that being a pastor boiled down to "paying attention and calling attention to 'what is going on right now' between men and women, with each other and with God." The Pastor is destined to become a classic statement on the contemporary trials, joys, and meaning of this ancient vocation.
About the Author
Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message, a bestselling translation of the Bible, is professor emeritus of spiritual theology at Regent College, British Columbia, and the author of over thirty books. He and his wife, Jan, live in Montana.
Product details
- Publisher : HarperOne; Reprint edition (September 18, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061988219
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061988219
- Item Weight : 12 ounces
- Dimensions : 0.91 x 6.12 x 8.82 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #52,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Christian Church Leadership (Books)
- #131 in Christian Pastoral Resources (Books)
- #1,685 in Christian Spiritual Growth (Books)
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Peterson, now retired, was for many years James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. In addition to his widely acclaimed paraphrase of the Bible, The Message (NavPress), he has written many other books.
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Eugene Peterson understands pastors like no one else! The truth is that God has exalted the role of pastor, and yet men continue to demean it, undermine it, or ignore it. Peterson's "The Pastor: A Memoir" is therefore a very welcome work to a man who has become a pastor to pastors. In this work, Peterson hopes to restore the dignity of the role of the pastor. I highly recommend it to all who are called to serve in God's Church, and especially to those who may have lost their way or feel inadequate to the great vocation to which God has called you. It will bring rest to all who are weary and heavy laden.
But Peterson goes about his task in an unusual and refreshing way. What is perhaps most striking about Peterson's work is something suggested by the titles of his chapters. What you don't find is a list of theological themes or pastorals roles but what looks like experiences from Peterson's life. This is because "The Pastor" is the story of the formation of Eugene Peterson as a pastor. Telling his stories is his way of teaching us how to be pastors, for, as he says, there is no one blueprint for how to become and be a pastor. "The Pastor" is a wonderful look at the formation of one pastor, Peterson, told through the stories and experiences by which God formed him as a pastor. Peterson's story, while unique, is also therefore the story of every pastor. There is such a depth of personal wisdom made meaningful to all that "The Pastor" teaches in a way that few other books do.
Another gift that Peterson gives us, in addition to his stories, is an incarnational point of view. The reason why he names his first section "Topos and Kairos" is that the work of the pastor is not an abstract work but is always a call to a specific place (topos) and time (kairos). This is also why Peterson must imbed his advice on how to be a pastor in the real-life stories of his experience as a pastor. In this, we might say that he's following the lead of his Master, Jesus Christ, who presented his theology in terms of the real places, times, and things of the people whose lives He shepherded. Montana will always have a special place in Peterson's life, just as the places of the Bible where God met man became sacred places. We all have such places in our lives, and I regret that in my own life I have too often dedicated myself to the "spiritual" tasks at hand and haven't always appreciated the importance of the precise place and time where God has placed me.
As Peterson recounts the way his mother used to sing and tell Bible stories with a musical incantation, we realize that it's no wonder that Peterson writes with the ear of a poet and has the sense of a master storyteller. I think Peterson is trying to tell us that among everything else a pastor must be he should have a poetic spirit and be a storyteller. Interestingly enough, Peterson also relates that "I had learned much in my father's butcher shop that gave bone and muscle to my pastoral identity." One thing he learned for sure was some of the deeper meanings of the Levitical sacrifices of the Old Testament! From his father's hard work, Peterson also learned the liturgical rhythm of life that served him so well as a pastor.
From these humble beginnings, Peterson shares with us, step by step and story by story, how God led him to be a pastor, including the astounding revelation that to be a pastor meant that you have a congregation. This, in turn, led to the further revelation that not everyone who comes to a church comes for the best or most zealous of reasons! In Chapter 16, Peterson makes explicit what he's already been telling us all along: that a large part of Christianity is getting caught up in the story of Jesus Christ. Stories, Peterson tells us, are unpredictable, and so we get caught up in them. When the gospel is told as a story, we are, Peterson discovered, encouraged to see our own life and church in terms of God's story as well.
I find it interesting as well that Peterson found both his pastoral and authorial identity in John of Patmos, the disciple whom Jesus loved. In this way, Peterson also imaginatively envisions both his life as a pastor and the life of any pastor who is looking for a new and better vision of his sacred ministry.
Peterson closes his meditation on being a pastor with a letter to a young pastor. Like the entirety of the book, it's not at all what you might expect it to be. There's no encouragement that the young pastor is someone special or unique, only that his calling is unique. Instead, Peterson directly states that to be a pastor is to be someone who makes more professional mistakes than other professionals and to be someone who doesn't always have it all together. But that's OK because in the end the life of the pastor (as the life of any Christian) is to be one that is based on a complete trust on God and not oneself.
If you're looking for a different kind of book on pastors and pastoring that just might help you to see what God has been asking you to see for a long time - this just may be the book for you!
Here's an outline of "The Pastor":
I. Topos and Kairos
1. Montana: Sacred Ground and Stories
2. New York: Pastor John of Patmos
II. Intently Haphazard
3. My Mother's Songs and Stories
4. My Father's Butcher Shop
5. Garrison Johns
6. The Treeless Christmas of 1939
7. Uncle Sven
8. The Carnegie
9. Cousin Abraham
10. Mennonite Punch
11. Holy Land
12. Augustine Njokuobi and Elijah Odajara
13. Seminary
14. Jan
III. Shekinah
15. Ziklag
16. Catacombs Presbyterian Church
17. Tuesdays
18. Companies of Pastors
19. Willi Ossa
20. Bezalel
21. Eucharistic Hospitality
22. Appreciation and Tomfoolery
23. Pilgrimage
24. Heather-Scented Theology
25. Presbycostal
26. Emmaus Walks
27. Sister Genivieve
28. Eric Liddell
29. "Write in a Book What You See . . . "
30. My Ten Secretaries
31. Wayne and Claudia
32. Jackson
33. The Atheist and the Nun
34. Judith
35. Invisible Six Days a Week, Incomprehensible Seventh
IV. Good Deaths
36. The Next One
37. Wind Words
38. Fyodor
39. The Photograph
40. Death in the Desert
Afterword: Letter to a Young Pastor
The main reason I love reading with Peterson is that his language and purpose are deeper than most other contemporary Christian writing. Peterson has a deep use of language, not that he is difficult to understand, but that he is very careful in his imagery and it takes time to process all that he is saying.
If you have not read any of Eugene Peterson theology books, then this is a good introduction. It is very personal, and gives context to much of the other theological writing. But Peterson also intentionally writes about why he thinks he developed as he did as a pastor, theologian and writer. There are several overlapping themes in this book and his previous book Practice Resurrection. The most important is he focus on stability as a pastor. Peterson started one church and remained pastor there until he left the pastorate to concentrate on The Message Bible, 29 years in total. Over and over I was struck by the number of times he said things like, "and it took me 10 years to come to the understanding that..."
This is spiritual autobiography in the best sense of the word. It gives a sense of how we develop as Christians and how we can develop into our vocation whether we are pastors or not.
I think most pastors will benefit from this, and I have already passed it on to several pastors that are friends and family. I would encourage you to read it and then give that copy (or another) to your pastor. It really is very, very good.
About half way through this second reading I think I understood what Peterson was trying to do in a different way. Peterson, through his own story, is showing us different way to conceive of the role of pastor. That is part of why I liked the book so much the first time I read it. But it is more than simply giving a new language. He is outright rejecting the way that most of us conceive the role of pastor. I had started reading the very good economics book "The Economics of Good and Evil" and was thinking about how the author was deconstructing our ideas about what Economics was capable of explaining. I understood that the book was particularly post-modern, in a very good way, because it was attempting to work through the variety of ways that Economics had been conceived through the texts of ancient and modern literature. Using these texts Sedlacek was able to help us understand the the modern, mathematical, predictive understanding of Economics is not only recent, but just one of many ways that Economics can be conceived. In many ways, this is exactly what Peterson is doing. He is doing it not through a variety of ancient texts, but through his own memoirs. Peterson is helping us, whether parishioner or pastor ourselves, to see that the modern, CEO, pastoral counselor, mega-church Preacher, etc., is but a recent understanding of a role that goes back thousands of years. We do not have to adopt the recent definition, instead we can adopt a different definition, one that is counter-cultural, but that Peterson thinks is more biblical.
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Decades later his work is still highly relevant. These days I train church leaders and this book has been timely in renewing my sense of vocation. We need that as leaders, because as he says I his book church is hard. The only way through becoming hardened is to rediscover who we are in Jesus. Peterson's memoir is an excellent and moving reminder to tap into the well spring of God's love. I recommend this for all church leader: the new, the old, the enthusiastic and the jaded.
At first I was a bit unsure of what I would think of this, as a number of friends had warned me off 'The Message' as a dodgey bible paraphrase. (Although I always enjoyed reading it) but I am a convert to Eugene H Peterson after reading this. His book is honest and full of leadership treasure. I will go back to it again and again over the coming years I am sure.
This book is autobiographical but in it, draws out lessons the author learnt and skills he developed at various stages in his life (Boyhood to Manhood) about how to be the Pastor, God called him to be.
He comes across as a normal guy, trying to be good and follow the Lord.
And after reading left me feeling that God is developing me all the time and that he does and will use me for Kingdom Purposes.
You cannot read this and feel discouraged.
I HIGHLY recommend.