Peterson Contemplative Pastor Quotes

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

It is easier to find guides, someone to tell you what to do, than someone to be with you in a discerning, prayerful companionship as you work it out yourself. This is what spiritual direction is.

Isn't it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets?

The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it. When

Prayer is subversive activity. It involves a more or less open act of defiance against any claim by the current regime.... [As we pray,] slowly but surely, not culture, not family, not government, not job, not even the tyrannous self can stand against the quiet power and creative influence of God's sovereignty.

How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?

It's the set of the sail, and not the gale that determines the way they go.

Jesus' favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual stories about soil and seeds, meals and coins and sheep, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. And they are wholly secular: of his forty or so parables recorded in the Gospels, only one has its setting in church, and only a couple mention the name God. As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defenses. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination. And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded!

Gabriel Marcel wrote that life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be explored.

The kingdom of self is heavily defended territory. Post-Eden

In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego.

Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life - children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships - and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives.

I have no interest in "delivering sermons," challenging people to face the needs of the day or giving bright, inspirational messages. With the help provided by scholars and editors, I can prepare a fairly respectable sermon of either sort in a few hours each week, a sermon that will pass muster with most congregations. They might not think it the greatest sermon, but they would accept it. But what I want to do can't be done that way. I need a drenching in Scripture; I require an immersion in biblical studies. I need reflective hours over the pages of Scripture as well as personal struggles with the meaning of Scripture. That takes far more time than it takes to prepare a sermon.

(from chapter 24, "Heather-scented Theology") "...I was more than ever what I had been becoming for a long time - a contemplative pastor. In these early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor. Some deep and cultivated pastoral instinct in Ian responded: he became my pastor without making me a project, without giving me advice, without smothering me with his concerns... I learned, without being aware that I was learning of the immense freedom that comes in pastoral relationships that are structured by prayer and ritual and let everything else happen more or less spontaneously. The competitiveness didn't exactly leave me, but it developed a root system that didn't depend on artificial stimulants or chemical additives - like 'start another building campaign.

Isn't it odd that pastors, who are responsible for interpreting the Scriptures, so much of which come in the form of poetry have so little interest in poetry? It is a crippling defect and must be remedied. The Christian communities as a whole must rediscover poetry, and the pastors must lead them. Poetry is essential to the pastoral vocation because poetry is original speech. The word is creative: it brings into being what was not there before - perception, relationship, belief. Out of the silent abyss a sound is formed: people hear what was not heard before and are changed by the sound from loneliness into love. Out of the blank abyss a picture is formed by means of metaphor: people see what they did not see before and are changed by the image from anonymity into love. Words create. God's word creates; our words can participate in the creation.

If pastors become accomplices in treating every child as a problem to be figured out, every spouse as a problem to be dealt with, every clash of wills in choir or committee as a problem to be adjudicated, we abdicate our most important work, which is directing worship in the traffic, discovering the presence of the cross in the paradoxes and chaos between Sundays, calling attention to the "splendor in the ordinary," and, most of all, teaching a life of prayer to our friends and companions in the pilgrimage.

PAYING ATTENTION TO GOD We bless GOD, oh yes—we bless him now, we bless him always! PSALM 115:18, THE MESSAGE Prayer is the most thoroughly present act we have as humans, and the most energetic: it sockets the immediate past into the immediate future and makes a flexible, living joint of them. The Amen gathers what has just happened into the Maranatha of the about to happen and produces a Benediction. We pay attention to God and lead others to pay attention to God. It hardly matters that so many people would rather pay attention to their standards of living, or their self-image, or their zeal to make a mark in the world. The reality is God: worship or flee. THE CONTEMPLATIVE PASTOR

apocalyptic that has no parentage in biblical sources or gospel commitments, does promote a progeny of irresponsibility (and the brats are noisily and distressingly in evidence on every American street), but the real thing, the conceived-in-holy-wedlock apocalyptic, develops communities that are passionately patient, courageously committed to witness and work in the kingdom of God no matter how long it takes, or how much it costs.

Nós queremos que você seja responsável por dizer e representar, em nosso meio, aquilo em que acreditamos sobre Deus, o reino e o evangelho. Nós cremos que o Espírito Santo está entre nós e dentro de nós. Cremos que o Espírito de Deus continua a pairar sobre o caos do mal do mundo e o nosso pecado, moldando uma nova criação e novas criaturas. Cremos que, por sua vez, Deus não é um espectador divertido e alarmado com os destroços da história do mundo, mas um participante dela. Cremos que tudo, especialmente tudo que parece destroço, é material que Deus está usando para fazer uma vida de louvor. Cremos em tudo isso, mas não o vemos. Vemos, como Ezequiel, esqueletos desmembrados, esbranquiçados sob um impiedoso sol babilônico. Nós vemos muitos ossos que já pertenceram a crianças que riam e dançavam, a adultos que faziam amor e planos, a crentes que levavam suas dúvidas à igreja e ali cantavam seus louvores — e pecavam. Nós não vemos os dançarinos, os amantes ou os cantores — na melhor hipótese, temos apenas fugazes vislumbres deles. O que vemos são ossos. Ossos secos. Vemos pecado e julgamento sobre o pecado. Assim parece. Assim parecia a Ezequiel; assim parece a qualquer pessoa com olhos para ver e cérebro para pensar; e assim parece a nós. “Mas nós cremos em outra coisa. Cremos que esses ossos se juntam formando seres humanos conectados, com tendões e músculos, que falam, cantam, riem, trabalham, creem e bendizem o seu Deus. Cremos que isso aconteceu da maneira como Ezequiel pregou e cremos que ainda acontece. Cremos que isso aconteceu em Israel e acontece na Igreja. Cremos ser parte do acontecimento ao cantarmos nossos louvores, escutarmos com fé a Palavra de Deus, recebermos a nova vida de Cristo nos sacramentos. Cremos que a coisa mais importante que acontece ou pode acontecer é não estarmos mais desmembrados, mas sermos lembrados no corpo ressurreto de Cristo. “Precisamos de ajuda para manter nossas crenças nítidas, precisas e intactas. Não confiamos em nós mesmos — nossas emoções nos seduzem a praticarmos infidelidades. Sabemos que somos lançados em um difícil e perigoso ato de fé e que existem fortes influências desejosas de dissolvê-lo ou destruí-lo. Queremos que você nos ajude: seja nosso pastor, um ministro de palavra e dos sacramentos, no meio da vida deste mundo. Ministre-nos com a Palavra e com os sacramentos em todas as diferentes partes e estágios de nossas vidas — em nosso trabalho e diversão, com nossos filhos e nossos pais, no momento do nascimento e no da morte, em nossas celebrações e tristezas, naqueles dias em que a manhã irrompe sobre nós num banho de luz do sol, e naqueles outros dias em que só garoa. Essa não é a única tarefa na vida de fé, mas é a sua tarefa. Nós encontraremos outro alguém para fazer as outras tarefas importantes e essenciais. Esta é a sua: Palavra e sacramento.

the ends. Jesus saw through it at once; why are pastors so intoxicated with visions and goals and so muddled when it comes to ways and means? The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension.

the ends. Jesus saw through it at once; why are pastors so intoxicated with visions and goals and so muddled when it comes to ways and means? The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension. Your mother and I have been thinking about this trust—we have named it the Selah Trust—and so have been trying to get a focus on just what it is that we have been about all our lives and how we want our money to be used in a way consistent with that. The word that keeps coming up is contemplation. What we are looking for is not primarily the causes and ends that people/organizations are committed to, but how they go about it—the test for gospel authenticity is the way, not the what. Standard fundraising is all about the what. Any how will do, so long as it brings in the money. So we find ourselves staying very local, very close to the ground, as we make our decisions and plans. I am not sure, Eric, that this is a letter; it qualifies more as a rant. At one time in the course of those earlier deletions, I started out by reflecting on what it feels like to be seventy. But that will come later. Actually, it feels pretty good. I can’t remember being as reflective regarding any other decade marker. There is a contemplative feel to this one. But maybe I had to get the “rant” out of my system to get down to what is really going on in me. With much love,

The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension.

Your mother and I have been thinking about this trust—we have named it the Selah Trust—and so have been trying to get a focus on just what it is that we have been about all our lives and how we want our money to be used in a way consistent with that. The word that keeps coming up is contemplation. What we are looking for is not primarily the causes and ends that people/organizations are committed to, but how they go about it—the test for gospel authenticity is the way, not the what. Standard fundraising is all about the what. Any how will do, so long as it brings in the money. So we find ourselves staying very local, very close to the ground, as we make our decisions and plans. I am not sure, Eric, that this is a letter; it qualifies more as a rant.

At one time in the course of those earlier deletions, I started out by reflecting on what it feels like to be seventy. But that will come later. Actually, it feels pretty good. I can’t remember being as reflective regarding any other decade marker. There is a contemplative feel to this one. But maybe I had to get the “rant” out of my system to get down to what is really going on in me. With much love,

The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods.

the word busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal. It is not devotion but defection. The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront.

The pastoral task with words is not communication but communion - the healing and restoration and creation of love relationships between God and his fighting children and our fought-over creation. Poetry uses words in and for communion. This is hard work and requires alertness. The language of our time is in terrible condition. It is used carelessly and cynically. Mostly it is a tool for propaganda, whether secular or religious. Every time badly used and abused language is carried by pastors into prayers and preaching and direction, the word of God is cheapened. We cannot use a bad means to a good end.

In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self.