Don’t you sometimes use illustrations from literature?
Peterson: Sure. I’ve just been reading Specimen Days by Walt Whitman, and I’m going to use the illustration of Whitman in the hospitals during the Civil War. He goes through this terrible carnage. As he enters a hospital ward, he sees amputated arms and legs piled up outside because nobody has time to dispose of them. But he goes into the wards and is cheerful and happy—not insensitive, but bringing in that sense of life and vitality. This is a great passage to teach pastors about pastoral visitation in hospitals.
You’ve said that preaching should be from the Word. What about the pastoral role in general? Does it come straight from the Word, or has time changed its criteria?
Peterson: A hundred or so years ago, pastors had a clear sense of continuity with past traditions. You knew you were doing work that had integrity; your life had recognized value and wholeness. Today, that’s just not true; we’re fragmented into doing different things. On the other hand, in the pulpit you do have that sense of continuity. When I’m preaching I know I’m doing work that has continuity way back to Isaiah. I prepare sermons somewhat the way Augustine and Wesley prepared sermons. I’m working out of the same Scriptures, so I don’t feel third rate when I’m in the pulpit.
During the week, however, I do fell looked down upon—when I go to the hospital to visit, for example, I’m a barely-tolerated nuisance. They can talk about the healing-team business all they want to, but…
You don’t buy that?
Peterson: Not the healing team. The doctor, nurse, and pastor are a part of the healing team, but they don’t look at you that way. I’m an amateur, they’re the experts. And, in a sense, that’s true. In the modern hospital it’s a different kind of healing center than anything the church has experienced, and we don’t fit there—we’re outsiders. Other factors contribute to this feeling of uselessness, too. When you have serious problems running your church, what do you do? You call up a company and have them send out somebody to show you how to run a duplicating machine, or you take a course in church management. And who teaches you? Somebody from the business community. All through the week it seems we’re intimidated by experts who are teaching us how to do our work—but they don’t know what our work is. They’re trying to make us respectable members of a kind of sub-organization they’re running, and as a consequence, we develop a self-image that’s healthy only on Sunday. I think pastoral work should be done well, but I think it has to be done from the inside, from its own base. That base, of course, must be the Bible; that’s why I immerse myself in biblical materials. In my book The Five Smooth Stones I elaborate on this.
What does that title refer to?
Peterson: Five Old Testament books—Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther—each of them is an instance of pastoral work. Song of Songs gives a model for directing prayer; Ruth is a story about visiting and counseling; Lamentations deals with grief and suffering; Ecclesiastes is an inquiry into values, the nay-saying sermon; and Esther is the story of community building. These aren’t the only areas of pastoral work, but they are five important resources that provide for my pastoral ministry a great sense of continuity with traditional biblical principles. Today’s pastor has to go back to similar scriptural truths. Nothing else will suffice. Modern success models can’t match the effectiveness and self-worth provided by Scripture.
So you’ve found your pastoral role model in Scripture?
Peterson: In the process of this study, I found I really like being a pastor; that’s my vocation, pastoral work. Through the whole process, I discovered what God has called me to do and the gifts he had given me in order to do it. In my younger years, I often found myself doing things that were not my ministry. I finally learned to say, “No, I’m not going to do that anymore.” I say no often. I disappoint many people, mostly people in the community and in my denomination. They have expectations they want me to fulfill, and I don’t.
Let’s speak in terms of the outward signs of success. Assume for a moment you’ve been approached by the search committee of a large church. They don’t tempt you with traditional success lures such as a bigger salary or a bigger church—they appeal to your ministry values. Here’s an opportunity to minister to 3, 000 people, when your present congregation is only 300. Look at all these people you could be touching. This isn’t necessarily the American success speech, but the ministry success speech. How do you respond?
Peterson: That’s simple. If you speak to 5, 000 people and are not speaking out of your own authenticity, your own place before God has put you, you won’t be any more effective as a servant of God. I don’t think the number of people who hear you speak means a whole lot. What’s important is that you do a good job wherever you are.
I hate suburbia; I detest it. I don’t like the architecture, the homes, or the culture. Many times I’ve said, “Lord, why am I here?” My congregation doesn’t share any of my interest in literature. We’re not at the same place. But this is where I am. If you feel one of your goals or ministries is to build a spiritual community, then that’s where it needs to be built. I’ve accepted this as my place for as long as I’m supposed to be here. That could be for the rest of my ministry or it could be until next year.
What would trigger a change?
Peterson: That’s difficult to say. Several times I’ve been at the place where I felt I was ready to leave. I just wasn’t working well and was not fulfilled. Each time I’ve said, “I’m going to make sure this isn’t a normal restlessness,” and I’ve plunged back in and come out okay. Let me illustrate:
The last couple of years I’ve felt as though I’ve been losing momentum. I quit doing many things I used to be enthusiastic about. I felt my life becoming more inward. My deepest interest is in spiritual direction, and since our community contains many psychiatrists and counselors, I quit counseling so I could spend more time alone in study and prayer. But then I found large gaps had begun to form in my congregation’s life. I had underestimated the community needs, and I really wasn’t providing community leadership. I felt my people deserved more from their pastor than they were getting. I thought maybe I belonged in a church with a staff that could be assigned the tasks of parish programs, and I could study more and maintain a ministry of personal spiritual direction and of preaching.
I talked with a friend about this for three days. He listened thoughtfully and then said, “I don’t think you need to leave, you just need somebody to be a director of parish life.” The minute he said that, I thought of Jane. She’s a woman of about thirty-five who came to me last spring saying she was in a transitional stage, wondering where the next challenge was for her. She had organized programs for the community, done a superb job administering them, and now was relatively idle. When I asked her if she would be director of parish life, a big grin came on her face. She said, “Let me tell you a story.” Her husband was an elder, and two years ago was in the session meeting when I shared this problem about my leadership. After that meting Fred had come home and said, “You know what Eugene needs? He needs you.” I took me two years to recognize that. And now Jane is at the place in her life where she is ready to assume this role of parish director. She needs to be in ministry and is filling some of the gap left by my withdrawal. I’m free to study more and be more sensitive to spontaneous needs within the congregation. In a sense, I had gone through a period of failure to discover grace.
Is your church growing in numbers?
Peterson: Slowly. My pastoral goals are to deepen and nurture spiritual growth in people, and to build a Christian community—not collect crowds.
Could it grow faster?
Peterson: Well, it could. If I did certain things we could double our membership. We could organize house-to-house visitation, advertise, bring in special speakers, create programs for the community that would tune in to some of their felt needs, or develop an entertainment-centered musical program. We could do all of those—but we’d destroy our church.
Why would that destroy it? Why don’t you get 350 new people you can preach to on Sunday?
Peterson: Because I’d have to quit doing what I need to do—pray, read, prepare for worship, visit, give spiritual direction to people, develop leadership in the congregation. I have to work within the limits of my abilities while I continue maturing in them.
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