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Remembering Eugene Peterson

The news has spread throughout the land and many of the tribes of God’s people are in mourning today: Eugene Hoiland Peterson has entered his rest. The Pastor has completed his pilgrimage. He was nearing his 86th birthday, and his days in the land of the living numbered 31,397.

In December 2008, I wrote my first letter to Eugene after reading his book, The Contemplative Pastor. I was a 26-year-old pastor serving in a church that was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but something about Eugene’s writing awakened hope in me that we could find our way back to the quiet waters. I had never met Eugene before I sent that letter and, frankly, he had no reason to write me back. He was 76 and could have ridden off into the sunset of the retirement he had earned. Nobody would have blamed him, not even I. But to my great surprise, he wrote back and invited me to their home in Montana for a few days of conversation and prayer. Since then, I’ve made seven trips to be with Eugene and Jan, their kindness making possible a friendship for which I’ll be eternally grateful.

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10 Things I’ve Learned About Preaching

As a weekly preacher, here are 10 Things I’ve Learned About Preaching:

  1. I’ve learned that prayer is the most essential work for a preacher. A sermon that has not been prayed into existence is a sermon that will miss the target.
  2. I’ve learned that my angsty preacher jitters about will this sermon sing? and will it dance with the Spirit’s creativity? decrease in direct proportion to the vitality of my prayer life.
  3. I’ve learned that there is a difference between exegeting a text and discerning what the Spirit wants to do among a particular people through that text. I may think I know what a text is trying to say/do, but that doesn’t mean I have tapped into what the Spirit is up to right here, right now, with these people. Both are necessary: exegesis and

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Eugene and Me, Part 3: What I Learned from the Man Behind The Message

Eugene Peterson recently celebrated his 85th birthday, so to wrap up my three-part blog series, Eugene and Me, I thought this would be a great occasion to share a little of what friendship with Eugene and Jan Peterson has meant to me over the years.

At the end of August, I went to spend two days with them at their home. Though I’ve met up with them a few times at retreat centers across the country, this was my fifth visit to their home in Montana. Every time I had gone to their house before this trip, they were in a position to receive me with some semblance of strength. On my first visit, Eugene was a vibrant 77-year-old who had just finished writing Practice Resurrection: A Conversation On Growing Up In Christ.

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Eugene and Me, Part 2: What I Learned from the Man Behind The Message

 

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Author’s Preface: Eugene Peterson, the acclaimed writer, poet, pastor, and translator of The Message Bible, has become a friend and one of the more important figures in my life. I’m writing a three-part series, and here’s a link the first installment in case you missed it.

Eugene and Me, Part 2–On Megachurches

Recently, an interview with Eugene Peterson was published in which he was asked whether he’s encouraged or discouraged by what he’s seeing across the landscape of the American church. In his response, he talked about megachurches:

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Eugene and Me: What I Learned from the Man Behind The Message

Me with Eugene and Jan

Author’s Preface: Eugene Peterson, the acclaimed writer, poet, pastor, and translator of The Message Bible, has been the topic of conversation the last couple days. If you have not heard anything and would like a quick summary, his literary agency has a short statement here. So, I thought I would take a moment to tell you about the Eugene Peterson that I have come to know and love. This will be a three-part series, and I’ll cover a range of topics, including his recent comments critiquing megachurches with some of my conversations with him in years past that will broaden the conversation.

Eugene and Me, Part 1

Nearly eleven years ago, life changed for me. I had been on staff at New Life Church for a year-and-a-half when suddenly we lost our pastor due to a moral failure. Lisa and I were in our mid-twenties and she was pregnant with our first child. We had moved away from both of our families and friends, and now this. It was a moment of great sadness for so many people. Thirteen months later on a snowy Sunday morning, a young man stormed onto our campus with an assault rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition and killed two beautiful sisters in our parking lot before storming into our church building where he was confronted and took his own life.

As a church, it felt like we had nothing left. As a young pastor, I was spent.

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