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Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity

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Peterson effectively cuts to the heart of pastors who too easily fall into clerical complcency. He focuses on the areas of prayer, scripture, and spiritual direction. He compels us to think of who we are, far more that what we do. It is convicting and motivating. Well written and timely.

The power, longevity and effectiveness of a church lies in large part on the leadership of its pastor(s). It shouldn't be about his or her administrative skills or ability to jump at every whim a member of the congregation brings forward. It should be about the spiritual life and leadership of the pastor. This isn't about perfection. It's about relationship with God. As a lay person who is active in the local church and works in a ministry to pastors, my heart delights in a pastor who puts God first and everything else in its proper place. You see, when the pastor's hunger for God is alive and well and being fed I can see it, and I have a role model to follow. When the pastor's life demonstrates the results of intimacy with Christ, I am motivated and encouraged.

As a lay person, I was brought up short because for too long I have measured my pastors by the to do list he accomplishes and the teaching she does. I have not always allowed them the space to do the most important things - being the guardian and teacher of the word and sacrament, abiding in Christ through prayer, and being the spiritual director I need rather than the quick answer to a problem I bring forward. I stand corrected.

My hope is that this book crosses the desk of every pastor in America, to renew his or her call to ministry, to give permission and encouragement in keeping the promises of ordination and installation. It will radically change the pastorate and the Church it ministers to.

Well done, Pastor Peterson. Thank you for your honesty, your leadership, and your willingness to be real and tell it like it is.

This is a marvelous writer who has walked the talk of a pastor of integrity. I remember reading his "Five Smooth Stones" in sem and marveling over the wisdom this man wordsmiths so succinctly for the rest of us to consume and feed on.

So it continues with this account of what angles really a pastor is about: prayer, the Word and spritual direction. Acts 6:4 certainly prescribes to Peterson's analysis as well.

This is a direct challenge to the CEO mentality in the church today. Marketing the church has taken over in too many places. The necessary corrective is offered here. As he poignantly writes: "This isn't the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task. We will find someone else to do the other important and essential tasks. This is yours: word and sacrament." Amen.

In his sharp yet graceful way, Peterson calls pastors to a needed level of introspection. As he notes, "It doesn't take many years in this business to realize that we can conduct a fairly respectable pastoral ministry without giving much more than ceremonial attention to God." Increasingly, the church is using social tools to both chase our rapidly accelerating society and to guage the church's success within our society. As a relatively new pastor, I've already experienced the pressure (my own and otherwise) to minister and measure my ministry by social standards that often have nothing to do with God's direction. Yet, Peterson clearly reminds the reader that faithfulness to God's call is often counter to society's best and most up-to-date wisdom. Through reading this book, my own priorities have shifted for the better.

When I interviewed for my first pastorate, I began to develop and live out the angles that Peterson presents as the true role of the Pastor.

Although I have not read this book in awhile, I have a triangle posted in my office that continually reminds me what I am supposed to do and be. I am to pray, read/study Scripture, and give spiritual direction. This is especially encouraging and helpful when I get hung up in the business of running programs and putting out "fires" and . . .

Highly recomended to all in the pastorate, or considering it. Should be a text in every seminary and Bible college.

Eugene H Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Grand Rapids Eerdmans, 1993 [1987])

Reviewed by Darren Cronshaw

Eugene Peterson calls pastors to prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. These are the three angles, he suggests, that if aligned will ensure the lines of ministry (preaching, teaching and administration) fall properly into place. It is repetitive and hard work, but Peterson is a great coach to keep at it. Peterson was a pastor for thirty years and is my literary mentor as a pastor and a grounded academic. He is a wonder with words and adept at exegesis, but demonstrates a capacity to relate his learning to the world of parish and people.

Rather than office management, image projection, voice control and creative plagiarism, all geared to make the pastor look good and the people feel happy, Peterson calls pastors back to their true craft. Pastoral leadership is not merely about satisfying a congregation but attending to God. This is the shape of pastoral integrity, in which he suggests three acts are foundational:

* Prayer brings us to attention before God
* Scripture helps us attend to God in his speech and actions
* Spiritual direction gives attention to what God is doing in a person

Contexts vary - from self, to the history of Israel and church, to a person - but it is God to whom pastors pay attention. When diary demands, human needs, career ambition and drivenness to succeed get me out of shape with my calling as a pastor, Peterson comes with welcome re-calibration.

PRAYER

In an age of technology and progress, in the spirit of the Greek god Promotheus who sought to make life better for everyone with any available tools, Peterson summons pastors back to `cultivating a grace-filled relationship with God' (p.30). In response to requests for `a little prayer for the occasion please Pastor', Peterson declares there are no `little prayers'. In the face of Enlightenment-inspired biblical criticism which sidelines the Psalms as the cries of a defeated though pious people, Peterson reminds us that Psalms were the prayer and worship out of which the prophetic developed. He reminds pastors that effective mission begins in prayer: `Anything creative, anything powerful, anything biblical, insofar as we are participants in it, originates in prayer. Pastors who imitate the preaching and moral action of the prophets without also imitating the prophets' deep praying and worship so evident in the Psalms are an embarrassment to the faith and an encumbrance to the church.' (p.40)

The Psalms, furthermore, remind us that prayer is `answering speech'. They are five collections of prayers, `out of the depths', in answer to the five books of Moses. It is not we, but God, who has the first word. God speaks creation and redemption into being, and we respond. Athanasius said most Scripture speaks to us, Psalms speak for us. They are personal and wide-ranging and the best place to do an apprenticeship in prayer. It seems that spontaneous prayers are highly valued in evangelical churches, suggestive as they are of a personal relationship. Yet the best prayers do not arise from our own reflection, but from Scripture-soaked imaginations. (See also Eugene Peterson, Answering God, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.)
My high school physics teacher, Mr Sewell, doubled as my Inter-School Christian Fellowship teacher. Mr Sewell taught us to pray with the Psalms. Every Friday morning, 8-9am, we would read 5 psalms. For example on the 2nd of the month we would read and reflect on what grabbed our imagination from Psalm 2, 32, 62, 92, 122. We added Proverbs 2 to throw a bit of wisdom in. That habit grounded my prayers for years and gave me a language for my joy as well as my pain, and helped me express my heart to God from mountains tops or valley bottom experiences.

Peterson argues the best gift and most helpful framework to guard time and space for prayer is Sabbath. He describes Sabbath not just as a day off or a utilitarian tool to get fresh energy (which is a bastard's Sabbath), but a reminder that God is working and does not need us to be active every day and every night. Sabbath removes our bodies from circulation. It separates us from people who cling to us and from frenzied routines to which we cling to for identity. Peterson says it is `Not a day to get anything done but a day to watch and be responsive to what God has done ... not primarily something we do, but what we don't do' (p.82). When we sleep and wake up, and after we Sabbath and come back to work, we are reminded God has been at work without us. We can ask, `What have you been up to God? Where do I fit? Where can I join in?' Peterson explains there are two commands and reasons for Sabbath.

* Exodus 20:8-11 says keep Sabbath because God did, and direct the space to contemplation of God. So Sabbath is not just a secular day off, but for cultivating prayer.
* Deuteronomy 5:15 says keep Sabbath because you were slaves in the past, and direct the time to leisure. So Sabbath is not just a Puritan holy day, but designed for playing as well as prayer.

The world needs not more frenzied activity but, in the words of poet W H Auden, better prayer and better play.

Peterson and his wife regularly take Sabbath prayer walks, which inspired Jenni and I to plan monthly Sabbath walks. The day is a mix of date, day off, recreation, reading space, prayer retreat and sightseeing. Our pattern is to drive up the mountain to Warburton. We start with a coffee and reading, and after an hour or two head off for a walk and prayer in different directions. We meet back at a cafe for lunch. After lunch we walk together - one way I listen to and encourage Jen, and on the way back Jen listens to and challenges me. We see this time as mutual spiritual direction. Our plan was to go every month, although in 2009 we have only done it three or four times. Funerals, sick kids and teaching has postponed some days. We both aspire to be more disciplines in keeping the dates. But our Warburton retreats have been among our most refreshing times of the year. Warburton has offered us space for Sabbath play and prayer: `There is a large, leisurely center to existence where God must be deeply pondered, lovingly believed. This demand is not for prayer-on-the-run or for prayer-on-request. It means entering realms of spirit where wonder and adoration have space to develop, where play and delight have time to flourish.' (p.65) The night before we invariably feel there is much else to do, but we are learning to enjoy Sabbath with a reckless disregard for our `to do' task list.

SCRIPTURE

Peterson puts his finger on my pulse that in studying Scripture for theological education and preaching, I have tended to listen less to God. This is a danger for modern pastors. Listening to and applying the word of God has been supplanted by the printed word and acquiring information about it. The printed word, our education systems and pastors' consumer-driven job-expectations have all sidelined hearing the Bible on its own terms. Peterson appeals for the primacy of the ear over the eye (see also his more recent book Eat This Book). He encourages us to be `passionate hearers of the word rather than cool readers of the page' (p.88). As a pastor, I can tend towards a dispassionate glance over the words rather than a deep listening of what God is saying.

Rather than a surgical approach to exegesis that cuts through layers of history, language and culture, Peterson advocates contemplative exegesis. This does not treat the Bible as a textbook but listens to the aliveness in the Word: `Contemplative exegesis means opening our interiors to these revealing sounds and submitting our lives to the story these words tell in order to be shaped by them. This involves a poet's respect for words and a lover's responsiveness to words.' (p.125)

The Ethiopian seeking to understand Scripture (Acts 8:30) needed a guide for his questions and not just an explanation. What helped him was the communal activity of listening, questioning and conversing toward faith. He did not need it summarised and abstracted. He did need help in making sense in how it connected with God and pointed to Christ. The encounter at Gaza points toward a prayerful and devotional reading as suggested by Brevard Childs: `Prayer is an integral part in the study of Scripture because it anticipates the Spirit's carrying its reader through the written page to God himself' (p.136).

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

After prayer and Scripture, spiritual direction is the third angle that shapes pastoral integrity. Spiritual direction is when two people agree to give full attention to what God is doing in one of their lives. It reminds me to discern signs of grace everywhere and to help people see what God is doing, rather than racing in with the advice I love to give. I find it a helpful framework and model of ministry not just for designated `spiritual direction' with someone (which I have not done), but for visiting, counselling, coaching and general conversations (which happen every day). In contrast to society's preoccupation with big events and signs of success, spiritual direction focuses on discerning God in the everyday; to `notice the small, persevere in the commonplace, appreciate the obscure ... the aspect of ministry that explores and develops this absorbing and devout attentiveness to the "specific detail of everyday incidents," "the everyday occurrences of contemporary life."' (pp.149, 150) Peterson says it helps shape the agenda of a pastor's work from the souls of people rather than the demands they voice. Part of the attraction of it for pastors is that it is not another task or role to add on to a busy schedule, but a perspective to bring to what pastors already do in helping people discern grace and learn to pray.

I resonate with Peterson's articulated need for a spiritual director. It is easy to be a pastor and neglect attention to prayer and Scripture, God and my soul's attentiveness to what God is doing. When I rock climb, I appreciate and rely on Patrick, my more experienced climbing mate. He helps cheer me on and keep me safe, lets me set my own pace and goals but is also there to help me if I get in trouble. We go together through the dark wet valleys as well as the high mountain peaks. Pat's hobby is climbing but his vocation is spiritual directing. In my spiritual trekking, I have similarly relied on Pat and other directors to help me discern what path to take, when to push on and when to be cautious, and to see what God is unfolding. It is advantageous to have a companion who can pay attention with me to my faith and prayer instead of relying merely on my own resources. My pride and self-reliance does not like it so much, but my spiritual health and vitality depends on it. I resonate with Peterson's need: `I began to pray for someone who would guide me in the essential, formative parts of my life: my practice of prayer, my understanding of grace. I wanted someone who would take my life of prayer and pilgrimage with Christ as seriously (or more seriously) than I did, who was capable of shutting up long enough to hear the distinct uniqueness of my spirituality, and who had enough disciplined restraint not to impose an outside form on me.' (pp.170-171)

Pastors easily fall short of the ideals of spiritual direction when they quickly offer advice, theological debate or things to busily do (rather than space to just be). Spiritual direction is not a set of tools or formulas, but primarily am attitude and openness to discern what God is doing in a person. Peterson thus counsels spiritual directors to cultivate:

* an attitude of awe, to see God in people and be amazed at what God is doing.
* a predisposition to prayer because, whether they say it or not, people primarily want to learn to talk to God rather than us.
* an awareness of our own ignorance, realising there is much about the person and their dreams we do not know, and much of what God is doing that we are not aware.

Cultivating awe, prayer and awareness of ignorance is a helpful corrective to tendencies to rely on programs and being dependent on pastors. The intentional focus is God: `I am a supporting player and not the lead. I do my very best, but in no way do I speak or act so that the person's response to me is the center-stage action. God wants to meet with this person; this person wants, unfocused as the want may be, to meet with God. I must not manipulate the conversation or construe the setting so that I am perceived to be in charge, or I merely delay the things of God.' (p.191)

Peterson brings out the best in me and my aspirations as a pastor, a biblical student and a praying lover of God. He deeply appeals for pastors to love out their vocation through prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. Employing this `trigonometry of ministry' helps other tasks be in sync with what God is doing: `Pastoral work disconnected from the angle actions - the acts of attention to God in relation to myself, the biblical communities of Israel and the church, the other person - is no longer given its shape by God' (p.5).

Darren coordinates leadership training with the Baptist Union of Victoria and hosts a monthly Eugene Peterson lunchtime reading group. A version of this review may be published later in 2010.

In "Working the Angles" Peterson opens with the statement "American Pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. . . they have gone (...) after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn't the remotest connection with what the church's pastors have done for most of twenty centuries" (1)

With this statement, Peterson goes on to explain the reasons behind this abandonment and the ways to rectify the situation. His thesis can be found on page 3 when he states, "Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to"(3).

The rest of the book is an explication of these three pastoral acts in three sections: Prayer, Scripture and Spiritual Direction. These three sections are full of insightful and helpful personal observations from Peterson and do an effective job of describing the type minister that anyone reading this book longs to be. In short, this book describes the ministerial style of Jesus, which is helpful when described but a little more difficult in practice.

Although the content of this book is interesting, it is written against an opponent that doesn't exist and gives answers that are painfully obvious in a way that is antagonistic and alienating. Where are these ministers who completely reject that reading the Bible, Praying and some sort of Christian Accountability (what Peterson calls Spiritual Direction) are necessary? Peterson rails against the whoring throng of ministers who have rejected these basic tenets with righteous indignation, the problem is these people don't exist. The people who do exist are those who have gotten confused and beaten down by the demands of the "job" and have lost their sense of calling and maybe don't pray enough, or read their bible enough or have any accountability. Unlike Peterson, I would not liken these people to those who have "bowed the knee to Baal"(3).

It is undeniable that there is a problem in contemporary Christianity w/ burnout among ministers (although It is false to assume that this is a contemporary phenomenon). When confronted with this objective fact, there are two answers. One is championed with "hot indignation" by Peterson and points to a causal relationship between "doing" and "being," as if these pastors had only been let in on the revelation that reading the bible, praying and friends were good things.

On the other hand, this book would have been great had it presupposed that the situation that some ministers find themselves in was not a conscious choice nor is it a result of some sort of undiagnosed narcissistic complex that drove them to ministry so that they could be seen (for the record, there are many more careers one could choose that are a little more glamorous. . just a few!). This book could have been written with the same pastoral insight and concern that it is hoping to engender in its readers.

If you're a pastor who is feeling out of control and looking for some good insights into life as a minister . . . read this book and skip the intro.

In Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c. 1987), Eugene Peterson expresses his concern that America's pastors have slipped into a "company of shopkeepers" anxiously marketing their wares, cultivating steady customers, making sure the bottom line balance satisfies their accountants.
Lost in the busyness of shop keeping, Peterson fears, are holy lives and knowledge of God. Here he notes that while the "visible lines of pastoral work are preaching, teaching, and administration" (p. 3) the "essential acts" are the angles holding the triangle together: prayer; scripture; and spiritual direction.
"Working the angles is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors and priests. If we get the angles right it is a simple matter to draw the lines. But if we are careless or dismiss the angles, no matter how long or straight we draw the lines we will not have a triangle, a pastoral ministry" (p. 4).
Working the angles means recovering an ascetical approach to spirituality, devoting oneself as an athlete to the activities which strengthen one's faith. Before venturing onto the playing field, one must get in shape, develop the muscles necessary to perform. This means becoming a person who prays. Unlike the activistic secular world, pastors must recover the biblical perspective--most adequately expressed in the Psalms--which declares that "the inner action of prayer takes precedence over the outer action of proclamation" (p. 28). Unfortunately, pastors do most everything but pray! Our culture hardly applauds such immaterial activity. Perhaps a few poets, such as W.H. Auden, see clearly the dangers we run as a people when we lose the ability to either laugh or pray. But few parishioners demand their pastor spend time in prayer, few boards include "praying" in the job description they compile. Yet if God's real and we can know Him, the most important thing pastors do is to pray and teach their people how to pray.
In addition to praying, pastors must learn turn "eyes into ears" and learn to listen to Scripture. Reading the text is fine, but it's not the same as listening to the LORD who speaks to those who have ears to hear. Accustomed as we are to reading and discarding newspapers, to reading-so-as-to-regurgitate school texts, one of the most difficult tasks we face is to learn to listen to the Word. Doing so leads us to engage in what Peterson calls "contemplative exegesis." Musing on the written word until one hears its inner voice, waiting on God until He reveals His truth, enables one to authentically proclaim God's Word.
Thirdly, the pastor serves as a spiritual director. This is not the same as "counseling" in the psychological sense. A spiritual director, on the basis of his knowledge of the spiritual landscape, develops the skills to help others negotiate their journey to God. Confident that God's always at work in people's lives, knowing how saints of the past have learned to respond to His promptings, freed from the temptation to lock unique persons into neat little categories, spiritual directors learn to listen and pray and facilitate the growth of those entrusted to their care.
Peterson agrees with the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, who said: "'In a certain sense, every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history with its empires, its wars and revolutions, its blossoming and fading civilizations'" (p. 110). Consequently, the role of spiritual directors must be revered as one the most transcendently significant available to man. Pastoral work is eternally consequential. So, C.S. Lewis describes clergy as "'those particular people with in the whole church who have been especially set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live forever'" (p. 111).

Peterson challenges his readers to avoid settling for maintaining merely an image of pastoral work. Using the metaphor of a triangle, he describes the visible lines of pastoral work as preaching, teaching and administration. But the lines of these public activities cannot give any shape to a ministry without the interior angles of prayer, Scripture reading and spiritual direction to hold them together.

Peterson declares, "I don't know of any other profession in which it is quite as easy to fake it as in ours." I'm in seminary now and I am emphatically not hoping for a ministry of "faking it." Working the Angles offers encouragement for the traditional, and traditionally quiet, disciplines of the interior angles. This is a book that I expect will resonate after five, ten and twenty years of pastoral experience.

Eugene Peterson's book is best read as a collection of suggestions for Christian pastors. In a sense, Peterson does not offer us anything terribly innovative: pray a lot, read the scriptures a lot, and have a mentor. But the book itself is unique in the way he gets this important message across. He does not lay out steps for how you HAVE to operate as a pastor. Rather, he speaks from his practical experience as a pastor for keeping things in proper perspective.
It is refreshing because Peterson's very practical and easy to read book actually helped me pray and read the scriptures anew. As a seminarian, I am all too accustomed to reading texts, and especially scripture, for the sake of study. But Peterson reminds us that proper prayer and reading of the scriptures are essential for our own survival let alone the survival of our flock.
Blocking out time specifically for prayer and study are a must for Peterson. His description of prayer and study alone import to pastors the necessity of setting aside time for these disciplines. It is all to easy for pastors to become burdened with the never-ending details and activities of the church. But Peterson's novel reminds us that if our spiritual life is not in order, then our congregation's life will not be either.