The long-awaited authorized biography of Eugene Peterson, A Burning in My Bones, written by Winn Collier, has arrived. I’m making my way through it. It offers an honest portrait of a beautiful life—flaws included. It helps give shape to Peterson’s vision of pastoral work, a vision that has shaped me more deeply than I can explain.
In 2005, in my first job in church ministry, by God’s grace, I came across the work of Eugene Peterson. I had heard of him, of course, because of his paraphrase — The Message. But, early in my ministry course, I came across his voluminous writing exploring the work of the pastor. I have no problem with The Message, but these books have become a real fountain for me.
At the time, I was brand new to it all, but I had a sneaking suspicion that God had: 1) called me to the local church and 2) to pastoral ministry for my life’s work. As a result, I was pretty desperate to answer a series of questions: “What is a pastor? What is a pastor supposed to actually be doing? How does pastoral work relate to a life lived in union with Jesus?”
Believe it or not, the answers to these questions are not altogether obvious and many of the models on offer seemed to be missing something. In short, I needed to be able to imagine the task differently if I was going to be doing it for my working life.
Later, at Beeson Divinity School, I was assigned even more to read, reflect upon, and write about from Peterson. Outside of class assignments, I read even more. I’m talking about books like Working the Angles, The Contemplative Pastor, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Under the Unpredictable Plant, and others. It’s hard to describe how revolutionary his writing was in his time—mostly published in the 80s and 90s. In his mainline context, he was calling those in his circles back to the Scriptures as the life-sustaining source of pastoral ministry. In the wider Christian world, he was tempering the obsession with church growth and vapid measures of success and presenting a vision of pastoral ministry that was more, I don’t know, humane? The words struck a chord in my soul. The principles Peterson outlines aren’t perfect. That is the thing, it is not an air-tight secret to pastoral ministry or anything of the sort, but his words have helped me make sense of it.
In Peterson’s writing, I found words for the things I was thinking but that I thought I was the only one thinking it. I wonder if you know what I mean?
In my first post after seminary, I exchanged some letters back and forth with Peterson. He was known to do this with young pastors. The simple advice he offered helped me so deeply. In essence, he told me to continue to read more good fiction, that it would help me learn to use words in beautiful ways. He told me to remember Jesus is always most interested in the unseen things. He told me that above all, be present to Mandy and our kids and that would help me be a good pastor because I would have the necessary perspective in the midst of pastoral pain and leadership complexities. I found his words to be true on each level.
I’d like to share more eventually, but from Peterson I learned: 1) That pastoral ministry is always personal and “placed.” Therefore, it should be focused on the real people in front of you with real joys and sorrows in the real conditions that God has placed you. 2) That cultivating a life lived in God’s presence and developing congruence between the outer work of the pastor and the inner life of prayer is the most important thing a pastor “does.” 3) That the Bible is deeply wild, interesting, unsettlingly so, and exciting and rich, and it can be and should be chewed upon, eaten, and ingested and that pastoral ministry allows a precious opportunity to live your life in those words.