A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

by Winn Collier

The badlands shaped, perhaps as much as any other voice or experience, Eugene’s convictions about what it meant to be a pastor. He possessed a dogged commitment to his immediate place, to his holy charge to pastor this one (at times fledgling) community of ordinary people. And he exhibited a resolute determination to resist the siren songs insisting he must push to make something of himself and build something “significant” at Christ Our King. These convictions were forged in the long stretch of desert years when his commitments were severely tested. Through frustration and boredom and dark nights of the soul, Eugene determined he would be patient. He would plod forward. He would stay put. Even as he slogged farther into this barren country.

We keep trying to do the work of the Trinity ourselves. And we are not the Trinity. I would want to tell pastors to quit being so busy and learn quiet, to quit talking so much and learn silence, to quit treating the congregation as customers and treat them with dignity as souls-in-formation. The primary thing that we are dealing with as pastors is the Word of God. And the primary stance we must learn both as pastors and congregations is to listen. There can be no language that works at all if someone is not listening. And since God is the primary voice in this gospel world, we pastors have to lead the way in listening, doing it ourselves and encouraging others to do it.

This is a section of a response Peterson wrote to the question “what would you say to evangelical pastors today?”