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The Pastor: A Memoir

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"...I want to insist that there is no blueprint on file for becoming a pastor. In becoming one, I have found that it is a most context-specific way of life:the pastor's emotional life, family life, experience in the faith, and aptitudes worked out in an actual congregation in the neighborhood in which she or he lives - these people just as they are, in this place. No copying. No trying to be successful. The ways in which the vocation of pastor is conceived, develops and comes to birth is unique to each pastor." - Peterson

Hand-cuffed. I don't even know how to write a review of this book. A review is what you write when it isn't personal. A review is what you do for books. The Pastor is far more than a book. You need to understand that Eugene Peterson saved my vocational soul just over a year ago. And since that time I have been pointing people - especially pastors - to his books. Especially young pastors. So how about a non-review?

Maybe the evangelical world has been a circus for a long time. But I didn't notice. I didn't notice all the center rings, high-trapeze acts and dancing bears. And the unspeakable horror of then realizing you not only paid for a ticket but got paid to take part. You walk out of the arena with sticky soles under you, past the sideshows and into clean air but you have no idea if you should go back in. Who will help you now? Is the insanity the only choice? Is there a voice of sanity in this wilderness?

I remember lying in my bed. The weight of being a pastor was on me and I wanted it off. I knew I needed some help. Maybe circus is the wrong way to describe what is happening in America. For I was surrounded...hemmed in by managers and CEOs, shopkeepers and PR men and women. Marketing analysts and door-to-door salesman of religious goods were everywhere. But I needed a pastor. Lying there, I would've said, "I need a wise old sage." The need was for sanity...Spirit-given sobriety in a religious subculture drunk on the cause célèbre. I needed gray hairs, wrinkles and the experience of someone outside the world I had found myself in. The need was not for all the right answers but good questions. I needed the wisdom of 'a long obedience in the same direction.'

And then, like gifts, memories. Memories of a professor assigning one of Peterson's books for pastors - which I never really `read.' A friend - a fellow pastor - recommending another. And a frozen scene of someone else reading one, the title of which burned in my memory.

So I began reading his books, swallowing them whole sometimes and sipping from them at others. For all of last year. Each was a well-written refuge from the chaos. Every thesis leaving its mark.

Again, sanity.

So when I found out he was releasing his memoirs, I was elated. Do you remember when you were a kid and you kept going back to the same page in the toy section of the Sears Wish Book over and over, reading the description, looking at that toy, the one you wanted more than any other. That is how it was with the description page for The Pastor. And then I got my copy from the publisher. It was late in the afternoon. Too late to start, I waited till the morning. A few days later I was finished. My wife asked me if I was sad. "No, I will begin again tomorrow morning."

Reading a memoir of Eugene Peterson is as reading in another world. A world bereft of 'how' but full to bursting of 'what.' A world without pretension, devoid of formulas. A tome of sober reflection. No romantic vistas of pastoral success. No cheerleading.

Peterson's vision of the pastorate, as dictated by the scriptures, stands athwart the ideal American pastor. Patience over results. The ordinary over the celebrated. People over programs. Dignity over function. Leisurely spiritual direction over ministerial busyness. Prayer over a PR campaign. The even-keeled over the events. It really would be impossible to document how differently he thinks than the current zeitgeist on the definition of pastoral integrity.

Almost everyone knows him as the author of The Message. For this he is loved and hated. But Peterson was a church-planter before it was cool to be so. He was thinking and living through methodology and theology and those inevitable emotionally lean years long before most of today's church planters were born. He was thinking about the dangers of a consumer driven religious atmosphere raising the banner of relevance before we had a category for such.

Don't get me wrong. This is a cheerful book. It's just not full of the saccharine sentimentality or the gritty (edgy?) cynicism we have come to expect from so many famous ministry leaders. Smiles stretch across the pages. Contented belief pervades every chapter. Bound together by the common thread of the work of Christ for sinners - the message once delivered for all the saints sits fixed like an anchor between the covers.

Chronology holds no sway over Peterson's account of his life as a pastor. Poetry does. He moves like a poet through his experiences and insights. His love of words and their sanctity - not just utility - is witnessed in how every word counts. He has no interest in just relating stories for us to learn from. He, as the Pastor, is glorying in them as memories enlivened through words.

But there is a lot to learn.

Over the years I have benefited immeasurably by the writings of Eugene Peterson. I think just about any dedicated Christian can pick up just about any work by Eugene Peterson and spiritually benefit from it. But this is especially true of pastors, of whom I am one.

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

This is an excellent memoir written by a great man. Eugene Peterson became famous after publishing his Bible translation "The Message". A pastor himself, he gives encouragement and hope to pastors, especially those who are finding ministry difficult. I really think that all pastors should read this book, but let's not stop there. I think congregations would benefit from this book as well, as it would give them insight into the pastoral role and will change the way you view and treat your pastor.
This was a great book.

In The Pastor, Eugene H. Peterson tells "the story of my formation as a pastor and how the vocation of pastor formed me." Peterson is best known as author of The Message, his "translation" of the Bible into "American words and metaphors and syntax." He recently completed a five-volume series--
"conversations"--about spiritual theology. And he has written numerous books about the pastoral vocation, the seedbed out of which all his other books has grown. This memoir narrates the journey of a Pentecostal kid from Montana becoming a Presbyterian pastor in Maryland.

For pastors, it is must-reading. For one thing, Peterson's story shows how God uses the particularity of our circumstances to shape us into the people he wants us to be, under the tutelage of Holy Scripture. For another thing, it offers a searing critique of the commoditization of American religion that turns "each congregation into a market for religious consumers, an ecclesiastical business run along the lines of advertising techniques, organizational flow charts, and energized by impressive motivational rhetoric." And finally, it does all this through a storytelling that alternates between humor, anger, frustration, and hope--the emotions all pastors face in their ministries.

Example: Peterson recounts being bullied by Garrison Johns in elementary school. Instructed by his mother to "turn the other cheek," Peterson endured the insults and beatings until "[s]omething snapped within me." He wrestled his tormentor to the ground, pinned him with his knees, and began pummeling him with his fists. His entreaties, "Say `uncle'" met with no response, so he began shouting, "Say, `I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.'" After a couple more hits, Johns said the words, gaining Peterson his first "convert." How easily the "world" infects the "church" with disease-ridden modes of ministry!

Another example: Early in Peterson's ministry, a local mental health institution invited him and other clergy to a two-year course in therapeutic technique. In the 1960s, when this took place, the pastoral counseling movement was gathering steam. Peterson learned much that was helpful from this instruction. But he also learned that counseling was not the pastor's vocation. "The people who made up my congregation had plenty of problems and more than enough inadequacies, but congregation is not defined by its collective problems. Congregation is a company of people who are defined by their creation in the image of God, living souls, whether they know it or not. They are not problems to be fixed, but mysteries to be honored and revered." That is the pastor's task.

In Peterson's telling, the pastor is "not someone who `gets things done' but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to `what is going on right now' between men and women, with one another and with God--this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful `without ceasing.'"

Local, personal, and prayerful. For me, these three words summarize Peterson's take on the pastoral vocation. Pastors lead congregations in a specific place. Montana is not Maryland. American is not Africa. Wise pastors understand the conditions of the place to which God has called them.

And they pay attention to the people among whom God has called them. Peterson quotes Baron Friedrich von Hügel, "there are no dittos in souls." Pastors must minister to people in their individuality, attentive to their inherent contradictions. Like his Uncle Sven, who was adored by his little sister (Peterson's mother), but abhorred by the wife he abused, and who killed him in self-defense: "When I finally did become a pastor, I was surprised at how thoroughly Sven had inoculated me against `one answer' systems of spiritual care." Souls are not dittos, and no ministry is one-size-fits-all.

But mostly, pastors pray, by which Peterson means that they enter an ongoing conversation with God characterized by listening and speaking to him. Early on, Peterson learned that "the vocation of pastor had to be understood entirely under the shaping influence of the biblical text," which teaches the redemption of creation and calls for a response of worship.

Peterson's memoir alternates between exasperation at what American churches so often are and hope at what they could be. He experienced both emotions in his ministry as a Presbyterian pastor in Maryland. But the dominant note of this personal narrative is hope. The church is "a colony of heaven in the country of death, a strategy of the Holy Spirit for giving witness to the already-inaugurated kingdom of God." This definition is not theological boilerplate. Peterson learned it from "wise Christians, both dead and alive." And though a Presbyterian, he shares the Pentecostal conviction that "everything, absolutely everything, in the scriptures is livable," including a different way of being pastor and church in the world.

I first saw the book on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and felt drawn to it, but did not purchase it at that time. Later, it came to my remembrance how years ago I was seated in a Vineyard conference. John Wimber was speaking at the time and asked God to reveal the Pastor's hearts. I felt God's Spirit touch my heart. I was rather surprised and didn't understand the meaning, but I always held that moment in my heart.

Now, years later, that moment returned to me. I saw the book in print, but thought, "I am not a Pastor, so it is probably not for me."

I listen to the Vineyard podcasts out of Anaheim where Lance Pittluck is pastor. Upon listening to one of his podcasts, he mentioned this book and suggested it as a good read for anyone who has a pastor's heart. He said you don't have to be in the pulpit for God to have given you a pastor's heart. There are many pastor's in the body of Christ who are never recognized as such, but care for the flock. I felt like God was leading me to read Eugene Peterson's work and how glad I am that I did. What beautiful truths are woven throughout its pages, and Oh!, how it ministered to me.

One of the quotes that impacted my life is found on page 85, "Now, incrementally week by week, semester by semester, my reading of the Bible was becoming a conversation. I was no longer reading words---I was listening to voices. I was observing how these words worked in association with all the other words on the page. And I was learning to listen carefully to these voices, these writers who were, well, writers. Skilled writers, poets, and storytellers who were artists of language. Isaiah and David were poets. Matthew and Luke were masters of the art of narrative. Words were not just words; words were holy."

Through this work I began to see God weaving our lives in and out for His purposes and His glory to reach the lost souls of humanity, to reconnect them with their Creator God through His Son, Jesus Christ Whom He sent to redeem mankind. We are each called to and for a purpose in this plan and if we follow His directives He will lead us each to what we were each truly created for. I believe, also, through this work, God is showing me the power of my words and the difference they can make in another person's life when spoken at His direction and with the breathe of His Spirit to bring life to that individual.

The book, The Pastor, also taught me not to get into religion, or allow my walk to become materialistic in an American culture where we are taught to be guided by 'doing' in order to 'make'. It's about what has God made me and then being what He has created.

"Story is a way of language in which everything and everyone is organically related. Story is a way of language that insists that persons cannot be known by reducing them to what they do, how they perform, the way they look. Story uses a language in which listening has joint billing with speaking. Story is language put to the use of discovering patterns and meanings - beauty and truth and goodness: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." - Eugene Peterson The Pastor

You know it's a good book when turning that last page is an emotional experience, when you feel a sense of loss that the story is over.

Eugene Peterson's memoir, The Pastor, is that sort of book.

Peterson shares life and wisdom which seem far disproportionate to the length of the book. He takes you on a journey with him, through childhood memories of butcher-shops and a Christmas with no tree, through the joys of seminary and new love, through the successes and struggles of years in the pastorate, and through integrating the life of the writer.

His prose captivates, bringing each story to life with a slow beauty. Slow not as in dense or plodding, I often found myself pages or chapters in without realizing it, slow as in unhurried. Reading Peterson was in that sense, and in the grounded-ness and wisdom he displayed, much like reading Wendell Berry.

I wish I had read this book years ago, though of course I couldn't have, because reading it has been deeply challenging and transformative for me. It has forced me to look at story, life, faith, church, and congregations with new eyes.

Though not holding back in critiquing the Americanized consumerist church - he suggests "treating souls for whom Christ died as numbers or projects or resources seemed to me something like a sin against the Holy Spirit" and later compares the Church Growth movement to a cancer - he also sees incredible value and necessity in the church, specifically the messy local on-the-ground church.

When my options too often feel like either blindly affirming a broken way of being the church "because I'm supposed to" or tearing it all down and starting over, a voice who's been in the trenches and identifies with both sides yet can hold them in tension was exactly what I needed.

There is much more to The Pastor, both as a vocation and as a book, but no review of mine is going to do that justice. So I'll leave it at this, Peterson's book is one of the best stories I've read in quite some time, and I give it my most enthusiastic recommendation.

Eugene Peterson is well-known in the Christian world, and is probably most famous for translating The Message. He is also the author of numerous books, and for most of his life, has been a pastor.

The Pastor is Peterson's memoir, along with insights on what it means to be a pastor. From his childhood in Montana to beginning his career in New York to a pastorate in Maryland, we are treated to the thoughts and memories of Peterson throughout his life.

This is like two books in one--a biography of Peterson, and a commentary on the lives that pastors lead. The book is well-written, interweaving the two themes seamlessly. Peterson's writing is poetic. You won't find many memoirs that are as well written as this one. I was especially captivated by his memories of growing up in Montana, working in his father's butcher shop and telling his family history.

This is a great book, not just for pastors, but for anyone who is interested in the life of a poetic writer.

Many years ago I called Eugene Peterson in Montana and asked him to call a friend of mine (Tim) who was about to graduate with a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I knew that Tim had read a number of books by Eugene Peterson and respected his authentic Christianity!

Although Eugene did not know me he readily agreed to call my friend in Philadelphia. When Tim looked at the caller ID and saw the name Eugene Peterson he could not believe his eyes. Tim asked Eugene what words of wisdom he would give to a new pastor. Eugene said that a new pastor should show Patience, Patience, and Patience!

Shortly after Eugene's call, Tim was offered his first position as a Senior Pastor in Arizona. Tim mentioned the advice Eugene had given him in his job interview!

Early in his memoir Peterson expresses something that has haunted me all my pastoral life - most people, including pastors, don't understand the pastoral vocation. "North American culture does not offer congenial conditions in which to live vocationally as a pastor. Men and women who are pastors in America today find that they have entered into a way of life that is in ruins....I couldn't help observing that there was a great deal of confusion and dissatisfaction all around me with pastoral identity" (pgs. 4-5). We do understand CEO-styled leaders, marketing research, therapy, managerial techniques, self-help tips and tricks, but we don't understand the role of pastor in the family, in the church, in the community. Thankfully, Eugene Peterson has given us a contemporary guiding light out of this self-imposed darkness.

The subtitle, "A Memoir" is an accurate portrayal of the warp and woof of the text. Peterson does not take the book as an opportunity to write a pastoral theology, though the whole book speaks to a biblical rootedness and a theology of pastoral work. He does not craft a chronological biography, though it does roughly begin with his formative years as a boy in Montana, and ends with deaths of his parents and his career after his pastoral work in Maryland. Each step on the book is his reflection on how God formed his life and lead him to the (then surprising) work of a pastor, and how even after leaving his pulpit in Maryland he continued to pastor a different kind of congregation through his books and the translation of The Message. One of the pleasant surprises along the way for me was the inclusion of his wife, Jan, as part of the pastoral work. Her demeanor and hospitality are attractive qualities in their story, and we forget the role of "pastor's spouse" to our own peril.

I'm not sure this book lends itself to some kind of a formal review, for what I received from it was vocational clarity and encouragement, not technical knowledge. The pastor's job is not dictated to them by the expectations of the surrounding culture, or for that matter from a lot of the evangelical pastoral culture which has become subject to the first pressure. The pastor is unique. Their role is not dictated by clocks and standard measures of success and failure. They lead in worship. They are formed by and strive to form others by the Word of God. Their lives are integrated wholes where the Spirit does His work to connect God's creation and work with His people.

I firmly believe Peterson paints a portrait we need to see. Pastors and congregations need to let it soak in. And, somehow, it needs to become the kind of portrait the world around us sees.

This is an autobiography for Eugene Peterson. He is a famous minister and author, with his most well known book "The Message" which is his translation of the Bible. I have always enjoyed reading autobiographies of preachers because their stories are often my stories. The feelings that they have and the struggles they deal with parallel my life. Reading these texts helps me to read my own life. Positive feelings of "I am not alone, I deal with that too, and wow, I can relate" all spring up in my head while I read these types of books. This is another excellent book in this genre. You will love his heart and his desire to fight against the over activity of preachers, he fights against the American ideal for a preacher, and he even fights against the jocking of power in the preacher ranks. He really does desire to be involved in the lives of the people. Though he struggles with this. He dealt with burnout, what preacher has not. He dealt with energy, lack of prayer, lack of desire, and just going through the motions. It is a refreshing read for all preachers. It will remind you of your calling, as well as your humanity. He tells some awesome stories in the book. He reflects on his life, and really the story that God told through him. It is a nice read of reflection, one that should not be rushed through because you will miss the story that your heart needs to hear. If you are in full time ministry, this book will resonate with you.