About five years into my life as a pastor, I was ready to quit and apply for law school. And then I picked up Eugene Peterson’s book on pastoral faithfulness “Working The Angles.” I have since learned that my story is not all that uncommon. Reading that book not only nourished my aching soul but gave me a vision for becoming the kind of pastor I could live with being. I have since read every word that I could find that Eugene has written. It feels like I knew him (Eugene Peterson passed away in 2018, I wrote some reflections upon his passing here) and have become acquainted with many people who did know him and spent time with him and his wife, Jan, at their house in Montana. I have so enjoyed hearing their stories that paint, in even more vivid resolution, this man who has had such a profound impact on me. 

Winn Collier’s biography of Eugene’s life, A Burning In My Bones, is the closest most of us will get to hearing the man speak in his gentle, raspy voice but it is a work of profound care and insight. Collier writes with a sermonic eye for words and pastoral intuition offering not only a recounting of events but insights into the man whose life touched, among countless others, the  likes of Phil Jackson, Pat Robertson, and Bono. Collier doesn’t write specifically for pastors but he honors Eugene’s lifelong goals of inspiring and restoring the pastoral imagination of American pastors. Collier frames his recounting of Eugene’s life centrifugally from his pastoral vocation. A prayer in Eugene’s journal illuminates Eugene’s how Eugene’s greatest ambition aligned with his daily work in the parish.

All I want to do is become a saint—but secretly, so no one knows it—a saint without any trappings…Every detail of routine and imagination, every letter I write, phone call made, gesture and encounter—gathered and placed on the altar and bound—every day another trek to Moriah (Kindle location 2985)

Eugene lived chasing congruence, secret sainthood and Collier traces that journey masterfully, allowing the seemingly mundane events of Eugene’s life to add up to something much holier, much more glorious than than they appear at first glimpse. William Stafford, in his poem Bi-Focal writes, 

“So, the world happens twice—
once what we see it as;
second it legends itself
deep, the way it is. 

Collier invites us into the legend, into the depths, into the weight of the way things really are in the life of a man who lived a life before the Lord. And he does so by highlighting the furnace that forged Eugene’s sainthood: the local congregation, the community “of sinners gathered before God” where “one of the sinners is called pastor” (Working The Angles). 

Collier achingly draws out the sense that all pastors have from time to time that we are under-appreciated and alone. Collier tells the story surrounding the introduction to “Working The Angles” where Eugene would “level some of the sharpest words Eugene ever wrote about the conflict between people’s expectations and the work of a pastor” (Kindle Location 2491). Eugene and Jan were about to head off for a sabbatical, they had joined a friend for a tour of the Holy Land. They walked the streets that Jesus, Jacob, and Jeremiah walked sharing the same views that the biblical writers had gazed upon as they pondered the inspiration from the Spirit. It was a rich trip. But, as it goes for leaders, the moment Jan and Eugene touched down back in Baltimore, Eugene received a phone call from a person in the church: people were talking (there’s always a phantom mob), criticizing Eugene, thinking that he was using his upcoming sabbatical as a cover for leaving the church. Collier includes a journal entry of Eugene’s following this contentious meeting with leaders in his church. Eugene writes:

I was furious after Tuesday night’s session meeting… On Wednesday I got through my visits a little early and stopped at the church: from 5:30 to 6 o’ clock I locked myself in the sanctuary and yelled/shouted/prayed for half an hour. Got all the tensions out of my stomach…Haven’t done this for a long time, but it was wonderful, even though temporary. (Kindle location 2492)

Eugene’s insights and observations shared in his books about pastoring were not from the idyllic setting of a “successful church,” rather they were the product of trying experiences from churches just like the one’s we all attend and many of us lead.

Collier gives us insight into the tensions Eugene often felt internally, rarely feeling like he belonged, like Moses in Midian. Collier includes the journal entry from Eugene:

Maybe I need to explore and examine exactly what this Bel Air “exile” means: the cultural depravation, the absence of friends, the separation from mountains and wilderness, the constant fight/struggle for pastor/writer identity (nobody asking me to do what I do best —and what at least a few people across the country affirm is my best). Does this add up to suffering? I feel that it does. (Kindle location 2608).

And perhaps most relatable of all, for every pastor who pastors in the Peterson-sense of the word, is this sense of not measuring up as a leader and at the same time wanting more for the people that we lead than they often want for themselves. Collier relays Eugene’s own sense of the all-too-familiar post-Sunday letdown, where the sense of possibility meets reality where there just aren’t enough people or enough money. Again, Collier expertly lifts Eugene’s voice to the fore as Eugene writes:

And now I reflect back on yesterday—the bittersweetness of each Sunday— the energy and sense of reality; and the hurt of so many absences. Why isn’t everyone there? Why isn’t that sanctuary full on Sunday morning? If worship is as good as people say it is, if I preach this well, if the community is flourishing— why aren’t more people pulled in, more people faithful? This is a deepening hurt and sorrow. I feel the personal rejection, but also the God-rejection—it is not me they are being so feckless with, but God. Do they have any idea what they are missing? What a poor trade they are making.(Kindle location 2618)

A pastoral prayer if there ever was one. 

Collier is not shy about the tensions and shortcomings in Eugene’s life. He features candid conversations with his son Eric, who tells of both glorious long car rides across Eastern Washington and “Timothy’ meetings with his father probing the pastoral vocation and, yet, feeling as if their was always an emotional chasm where he always wanted more from his dad ^[1]A book released this past year, Letters To A Young Pastor, features letters from Eugene to his son, Eric, discussing the pastoral vocation. It fills out this tension nicely and is itself a beautiful … Continue reading. Collier describes Eugene’s battles with alcohol and the very real struggles that Eugene and Jan endured in their overall, quite happy marriage. Again Collier lets Eugene’s voice shine through as Eugene writes, “I think I have not so much been fulfilled in marriage as deepened, chastened, honed, and simplified” (Kindle location 2660).

I wish I could have shared that space, heard Eugene’s whispery voice over the stillness of that mountain air for myself. But for all of us who have been blessed by Eugene’s life and never had the chance to meet him, Winn Collier’s biography, is a beautiful and honest narration of Eugene’s beautiful and honest life.  It’s been said of pastors that we really only get one sermon, we just preach that one over and over again in different ways. The best sermons have compelling stories, practical applications, a good bit of mystery and tension, and focus all of our attention on the grace of God in Christ. Through Collier’s pen we hear Eugene’s life as enacted sermon, a life of congruence. A Burning In My Bones is a work worthy of the man, and worthy of its title as the book is sure to inspire Christian leaders to see how a holy life whether widely known or lived in obscurity “legends itself” and is an invitation for us to fix our eyes upon Jesus and join Eugene in the unwavering quest for congruence. 

In honor of the life and legacy of Eugene Peterson, I will be using the Message version of the psalms as our text. Psalm 26 sounds, on its face, like the self-righteous protestations of a deluded legalist. Is David really placing wagers on his own integrity (v. 1) in the presence of a holy, all-seeing God? He even invites God to perform open-heart surgery on him, examining the hidden caverns of his life (v. 2). So what are we to do with a psalm that most of us would never claim is true of our own experience? How do we pray this along with David with a straight face?

What David expresses here is a visceral, unflinching trust. It may sound as though he is unwilling to confess his own sinfulness but that misses the point. This psalm is not about who David is, this psalm is about who God is. The steadfast love of God is the branch that David clings to, holding fast in the rushing currents of falsehood and idolatry. Left to his own devices, David would be swept along with the sinners, the devious, the frauds. But David’s life is not defined merely by his own actions, his life flows from a deep river of confession, worship, and prayer.

I scrub my hands with purest soap,
then join hands with the others in the great circle,
dancing around your altar, God,
Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs,
telling God-stories.
God, I love living with you;
your house glows with your glory. 

The Message, vv.6-8

He expresses his trust in the means that God has provided for purification. He recalls rapturous times of worship in the presence of God and the community. His life is shaped by story and song both of what God has done and his own experience with God. Everything for him starts from a deep and personal encounter with God.

David invites us to a faith that is embraced in momentary acts of faithfulness, where the words of our mouths and the state of our hearts are constantly presented to God for examination. God’s presence is a fire, engulfing and purifying every corner of his life. We can trust that God’s presence will not simply rubber stamp our agendas, or provide us with good feelings to get us through the day, but it will provide a way forward, a way of openness, of integrity, of transformation.

David beautifully conveys the meaning of life: God, I love living with you. David’s life before God expresses the poles of this life: exuberant displays of abandon in the congregation where everything is in its right place and a life of contemplative nearness in the midst of ambiguity and brokenness, a life lived up close to God. Openness, vulnerability, this is the life that is oriented to God’s presence. Trust is the foundation of this life, a trust that says God is exactly who he has shown himself to be, abundant steadfast love and thus, I can trust that I am exactly who he says I am: beloved.

Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. We do not have a God who forever indulges our whims but a God whom we trust with our destinies.” -Eugene Peterson

Some men are less than their works, some are more. To have known the man would have been enough; to know his books is enough. [He was] the same man in his life and in his writings.^[1]T. S. Eliot on Charles Williams. Feels appropriate for Eugene as well.

I suspect my story is not unusual. I was languishing in self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-absorption. I was a pastor, in title, not in practice. I was given a title and a job description but not a vision for doing God’s work that actually cultivated an awareness of God’s presence. Church work seemed like the least Christian work I could imagine. Five years into pastoring, I had made up my mind that I wanted to be more where the action was, where the power of the Gospel was manifested in ways I could touch, and where I frankly felt a little more useful. I was going to study law.

And then I met Eugene Peterson.

Up until that point, I was aware of Eugene Peterson but wrote him off as the author of a “popular” Bible translation—my two semesters of Greek encouraged me to use this word, “popular,” pejoratively…little did I know at that point that Peterson was a Semitic languages scholar whose translation, The Message, was a pastoral attempt to help his congregants better hear and read Scripture, it was not the first or the last time Eugene taught me a lesson in humility and listening. I picked up the book “Working The Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.” This was my second conversion.

For the first time, a light was beginning to shine on what it meant to pastor not simply as a job but as a vocation. It would not be long before I had read every book I could find by Peterson. Eugene was drawing me into a deep life of doing for God that flowed from a being with God, a way of “saving souls” while finding my own. Eugene wrote as an artisan, a tradesman who crafted pictures out of words. Eugene was a storyteller in the heritage of Jesus himself, drawing people into the expansive world of Scripture and making its world seem not so distant from our own.

Before I met Eugene, people would ask me what I did for a living in different social situations and I would always respond “teacher.” I told myself that I did not want to push people away who might have reservations about the idea of talking to a pastor but really I am just not sure I believed in what I did—really, I am not sure I knew what it meant to be a pastor.  Eugene’s wise words and contemplative faith saved my own faith. Not my faith in Jesus, or in the power of the gospel, but my faith in pastoring— in doing thousands of seemingly irrelevant tasks faithfully, of committing to Scripture and prayer above all else, of discerning a vocation of deep spirituality in the midst of a demanding job description. Eugene Peterson awakened me to the reality that it is a profound and fearful thing to call one’s self a pastor. It is now a title I wear with great pride and even greater humility.

In an interview recently, Eugene said his hope for life’s work was simple, “I hope I can be part of changing the pastoral imagination of pastors in America.” To that prayer, I know the Lord has answered “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Eugene was my pastor. And by judging from my own experiences with my colleagues, Eugene was a pastor to thousands of other pastors and thus his congregation is in the millions. Though I never met Eugene, I apprenticed myself to him, acquainting myself with his generous mastery.He gave me a trade, he passed down tools of Word, gospel, prayer, and poetry, he invited me into the kind of work that dignifies a man, that makes him grateful for a hard day’s labor. He made me want to be a better pastor and a better man. He writes, “A life of congruence. It is the best word I can come up with to designate what I am after…”^[2]From Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places

I am not only grateful for Eugene’s life but forever shaped by it. I have great joy in the thought that at this very moment, Eugene is beholding and smiling at the face of the Savior he loved so dearly—I hope that Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Karl Barth, and John of Patmos are there for the first brunch by the lake as well.

Thank you, Eugene. You have been my companion in finding my way as a pastor, it is lonely work, and I needed you. ^[3]From Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor. The afterword is a “Letter to a Young Pastor”

Recently, I have talked to a lot of people in my sphere about the coverage of church planting in a conversation between Ira Glass and Eric Mennel on This American Life. I have been grateful that the podcast has sparked a lot of interest in my friends who don’t consider themselves Jesus followers in what we are doing planting a church. As a church planter, in the early stages of planting Ecclesia, a missional community in central New Jersey, any time I can talk to somebody about Jesus and church, I will take it a hundred times out of a hundred. But what I have also seen is that the coverage of church planting has left people feeling uneasy.^[1]This American Life aggregates a longer podcast series called Startup where Eric Mennel documents the work of Watson Jones and AJ Smith at Restoration Church in Philadelphia.I want to address a couple of the items that stood out to me and wrestle honestly with the tension of trying to build something from scratch without losing the soul of what a church that follows Jesus is: a community of worship and mission, shaped by the love of Jesus to announce the Gospel of restoration, salvation, and justice to its immediate context.

Just A Christian Copy of The Tech World?

The angle that the conversation surrounding church plants takes is that evangelical church planters are simply adapting the philosophies of the the tech industry. In the Podcast, Eric Mennel (of the Startup Podcast) states, “What the Christian world is trying to do is use the tools of Silicon Valley to create startups.” The hosts point out that there are conferences, seminars, and books all designed to help people take their vision from nothing to a fully functioning, self-sustaining operation. This is partially true and Mennel really focuses on this angle with AJ Smith. In Episode 3 of the Startup podcast, Mennel uses the framing question, “Does what makes you a good entrepreneur make you a bad Christian?” I can speak for many a planter and pastor when I say I have felt this tension in my own ministry. The pastor I have been shaped most by in my ministry is a man named Eugene Peterson. One of Peterson’s many powerful and insightful quotes is a direct affront to the church planting industrial complex, “The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.” This quote and the theology behind it has had a profound impact on my own vision and leadership. Part of leading with integrity, for me, is a congruence between ways and means. But full disclosure, I have also read a lot of books this year like Scaling Up, The Culture Code, and even Patrick Lencioni’s The Better Pastor that is a sort of parable illustrating a local parish priest awakening to better management practices available to him.

“The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans.”

There is a tension here to be certain. But here’s the thing. I have seen that to grow as a leader is not simply becoming more spiritual, praying more, reading Scripture more. Pete Scazzero, in his Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, talks about how he would often hide away in those activities when faced with some of the truly difficult, uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing aspects of leading. And believe me, I would read the Bible and pray all day rather than face another day of fundraising. And that would be an abdication of my God-given call to lead my church. For pastors, we are naturally lovers of people, we want to partner with God to see individuals, neighborhoods, and whole cities transformed by the love of Jesus. We love talking about the Scriptures and praying with people. But with that responsibility comes a burden to lead people. To suggest that pastors have nothing to learn from the world of business and technology is not just foolish, its arrogant. It also suggests to those that we serve and lead from those fields that their everyday world is somehow unredeemable, a vocation altogether removed from the life of the church. I think there is a humility and an affirming of the business world that happens when churches and their leaders listen and ask questions. Certainly, as John encourages his recipients, we must “test the spirits” (1 John 4) but there is much wisdom to be found outside the church. We are right to seek it, to form it to the shape of the crucified Jesus, and to learn and grow from it.

The Heart Of Church Planting

The assertion that the Christian startup world is just copying the tech startup world ignores two of the fundamental realities of church planting and church in general: relationships and contextualization. I find it interesting that the This American Life, and the Startup podcast, to a large extent ignores the relational elements of Watson Jones and AJ Smith’s work. They fall into the same trap that many Christians fall into, focusing only on Sunday morning as the fruit of the ministry. But what are Watson and AJ doing Monday-Saturday? They are incarnating the neighborhood, they are walking the streets praying for people, they are interacting with business owners, listening to neighbors. In short, they are loving the place that they live. They are learning the rhythms of that part of Philadelphia, reading the culture to see where the needs of their community and the power of the Gospel meet. I will be participating in one of the Incubators, hosted by Tim Keller’s City To City (referenced in the pod). And the whole focus of the program is not how to build a thriving organization, its how to be shaped by the Gospel in such a way that your city thrives because your church is there. 

A brief aside. Glass and Mennel are right to point out that church planting organizations often focus on booming suburbs or gentrifying neighborhoods where income is plentiful, population is increasing, and the soil seems right for mega-church growth. There are two ways to look at this, one decidedly more cynical than the other. First the slightly shadier version of events, its been shown that churches grow rapidly in predominately white, emerging suburbs so if your prone to think that church is all about money, well you may be onto something at times. Second, its a numbers game. Right now upwards of 90 people a day are moving to expanding urban centers like Austin, TX, Charleston, SC, and Nashville, TN. You would be right to presume that church planting organizations and planters are working hard to plant in those areas and if you look at it from a strictly altruistic perspective, it makes sense. Churches that are interested in planting are all about the maximum number of people hearing and responding to the Gospel; therefore they are going to the places where the most people are. There are certainly significant layers to this sort of perspective on planting, as church planting, like gentrification, often ignores the historic shape of a neighborhood instead crafting in the image of the newest residents.

The denomination I am a part of, the Evangelical Covenant Church, along with many other incredible, historic expressions of the Christian faith aren’t chasing the latest, hippest locales. They are seeking planters that love a place enough to listen to its hurts, to know its pain, to know its longings and who want to help the people there see the power and beauty of Jesus’ love. We are planting in a semi-urban area that is not gentrifying and is not gaining population. It is among the counties with the highest income disparities in the country and is a place where over 170,000 people identify with “no religion.” We are not doing this to be the newest, coolest church in a trendy area. There is nothing trendy about Ewing, NJ! We are planting here because we can partner with several other churches already here that are doing faithful Gospel-centered ministry and can be an expression of the Kingdom of God here in a place that we love.

One thing I did really enjoy about the Startup podcast is that it casts church planting and really, leadership, in its true light. Leadership is not flashy or remarkable. Leadership is suffering. I commend Watson and AJ both for their incredible vulnerability during this series. Eric Mennell is dead-on when he tells Ira Glass about Watson and AJ’s work, “At some point no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, either people come or don’t.” 99% of the church planters I have met are just people who love Jesus, love the people of a certain city, and are perhaps just crazy enough to think they can start something that will help those people find that same Jesus they found. They are not people who are trying to get rich, they have signed up for a path with incredible uncertainty from a career and financial security standpoint in the hopes of seeing the love of Jesus taking root in their neighborhoods. If you are skeptical that churches are just like other organizations, focused simply on the bottom line, the church has certainly earned your cynicism. Hopefully, This American Life, didn’t simply confirm all your suspicions but raised some questions. If so, your local church planter in bars, coffee shops, and walking the streets praying for you, would be happy to tell you more about their church, and even more happy to listen to your story and tell you about Jesus.