Begin with Local Saints

In Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), Eugene H. Peterson draws an implication from the verse “supplications for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18), saying:

We are in a community, these baptized men and women, “the saints” whose names we know, brothers and sisters in Christ. Human relationships require alert and persevering maintenance. Begin with these saints, the people that in Christ you have most in common with, and then move outwards. That many of them don’t behave or look the way we think saints should is no concern of ours. They are saints by virtue of the way God looks on and treats them. It is always easier to pray for people we don’t know and don’t have to deal with than for those in our own congregation and home. But we are not God’s schoolmarms assigned to keep order, set standards, and enforce compliance. Our assignment is to practice resurrection with them (p. 267).

We are on the move to mission and like to talk about mission in Christian conversation. We are concerned about various people groups out there. We want to bring them into the kingdom of God and train them to become kingdom people. We want them to move from sinners to saints. We want to do great things for God. We want to aim high and big. We are interested in nameless people. But we are not interested in people whose names we know because those whom we know are not saints.

As a pastor, I really like what Peterson writes: “Begin with these saints, the people that in Christ you have most in common with, and then move outwards.” I have been preaching and teaching in a local church in Indianapolis for almost a year. I start to know some of these saints with names. My task is to help them know the gospel and grow along with the gospel because we never grow out of the gospel. Pastoral work is a soul work. So, it is a slow work. True pastoral work always begins with local saints whom we can see and relate regularly. I don’t like people talking about nameless and faceless mission. I don’t see the point why we are so passionate about nameless and faceless mission but show no interest in local mission. I think we don’t really want to know people. We are not interested in soul/slow work. We just like mission as a missionary task. But we don’t see that mission is God’s mission, and God’s mission is about people: knowing people, saving people, and even becoming one of them.

If we are on to mission, “begin with these saints…and then move outwards.” I don’t see a lot of missionary ideas in Peterson’s writings. The term “mission” rarely shows up. Yet, it doesn’t mean that the concept is not there. His missionary concept is often subtle and starts from a particular locality. The way I understand Peterson’s pastoral ministry as mission is that God’s mission always begins with a local place and a local people. Begin with a locality—Jerusalem. From there, we move outwards (see Acts 1:8). Once we neglect our Jerusalem, we just talk about doing mission in Judea and Samaria.