At the end of the coversation, Peterson said, "The true pastorate is a work of art—the art of life and spirit." What I like him the most is that he sees his pastoral role as an artist. An artist is always associated with creativity. The work of pastoring is the work of creativity, for it's associated with transforming life: from already to the not yet. We never know what the "not yet" would be like.
Here is Part 3:
Here is Part 3:
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Peterson: They go to committees all day long, spend a lot of time in community organizations, do secretarial work, visit for the sake of recruitment, whip up enthusiasm for the next project. We are in a desperate place. There is an urgency about what we are doing which cannot put up with triviality. The task we are given is very important, urgent, and we’d better do it. There really is an apocalyptic dimension to what we do. I believe the New Testament is an eschatological book shaped by a redeemed apocalypticism.
Redeemed apocalypticism? Uh…we know what you mean, but for a lot of our readers you’ll have to translate that.
Peterson: Everything in the New Testament is written under the pressure of the end. Christ is coming back. Revelation is a flowering of that, but it’s all through the New Testament. Unfortunately, the New Testament has been reinterpreted into a kind of moral Reader’s Digest advice column. It’s no wonder there is no sense of urgency. But this is an urgent time and the task of the Christian is to learn how to maintain that urgency without getting panicked, to stay on our toes without caving in to the culture. This is not just a benign culture where everything is going to be fine. Everything is not going to be fine.
How do people learn to live with the tension you’ve just described?
Peterson: The pastor has to model this for the congregation. People are dying and being killed, getting divorced. We all live in a perpetual crisis community, and the pastor is the one who is there in these moments of crisis, subversively modeling what it is like to live the gospel.
It seems odd that, as a result of your view of the urgency of the hour, you haven’t mentioned the word “evangelism.”
Peterson: I don’t use the word “evangelism” much. It’s a ruined word. I have a great concern about evangelism. The very nature of the gospel is that it is to be communicated and shared. But I don’t think the gospel is ever going to be very popular. It never has been and it never will be. If we live the Christian faith right, it will not result in full and overflowing churches. There is just no evidence for that any place in Scripture or history. If we determine successful evangelism by how many people we bring into the church, then we’ve got it screwed up from the start. What we have to do is to make sure that we are being personal and energetic about sharing our faith—but also being honest. And I think honesty is the hard part.
You’ve been at your church a long time—29 years. What do you think about the long-term pastorate?
Peterson: Long-term pastorates cause the minister to grow. You have to have. You can preach and worship and disguise what you are for a few years, but then comes the time when you have to make a d decision. Am I going to move to a new place and disguise myself again until they discover who I am, or am I going to become something more? If you decide to stay, you will be forced to become a deeper and more extensive person.
How would you describe your church?
Peterson: It’s not a large church—we reported 438 members in the last general assembly. Most of the time it has been much smaller than that—more like 250 to 300 people. But in the 29 years I’ve been here, we have probably received 2, 000 members. That’s with no evangelism program. But I want to make it clear that this isn’t the only way to have a church, and what I am doing isn’t the only way to be a pastor.
Do you have any problem with big churches of, say, 2, 000 members?
Peterson: When we started our church, we decided to plan for a church of 500 members. I thought 500 was manageable. We decided that when we got to the place where we exceeded 500, we would start another church. We are at that point now, and we tried to start another church, and the presbytery said no because it is more cost effective to have a church twice our size.
Great reason.
Peterson: Yeah. Now we’ve got cost-effective people running things. We have to go along with it because I don’t believe in flouting my authorities. But let me say something about the 2, 000 member church. There is a way to be the Church with 2, 000 members—or 5,000 members, for that matter. It requires more pastors, of course, but part of my situation is personal. It would be a mistake for me to pastor a church of that size, but I have nothing against a large congregation.
Have you enjoyed the pastorate?
Peterson: Being a pastor is an incredibly good, wonderful work. It is one of the few places in our society where you can live a creative life. You live at the intersection of grace and mercy and sin and salvation. We have front line seats and sometimes we even get to be part of the action. How could anyone abandon the glory of that kind of life to become a management expert? We are artists, not CEOs. The true pastorate is a work of art—the art of life and spirit.
The End
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