Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work Quotes

“For the pastor has the responsibility to nurture the affirmative without encouraging the gullible; to keep
people alert and prepared to say yes to every yes of God in every part of existence without at the same time being a patsy for every confidence game in town; to train people in robust acceptance of what God brings to us and not to passively submit to the trashy merchandising of religious salespeople. We must confront the breezy, irresponsible nonchalance that avoids hard difficulties and shuts its eyes to the worst suffering. We must demonstrate that the trumpet sentence "in him it is always Yes" can only be sounded in a world in which job's doubt and pain are affirmed, a world in which David's disintegrating family and harassed kingship are accepted, a world in which Peter's denials and bitter weeping are acknowledged - a world of shipwreck and rejection, famine and plague, a world in which Jesus Christ hangs on a cross feeling in every nerve-end the physical and spiritual disorder of a world that says no to God.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

“Pastoral work is a commitment to the everyday: it is an act of faith that the great truths of salvation are workable in the "ordinary universe.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

“When I look for help in developing my pastoral craft and nurturing my pastoral vocation, the one century that has the least to commend it is the twentieth. Has any century been so fascinated with gimmickry, so surfeited with fads, so addicted
to nostrums, so unaware of God, so out of touch with the underground spiritual streams which water eternal life?”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

“Lamentations is insurance against premature comfort, against "healing the wounds of my people lightly" During the time of ruin there are always those who attempt to cover the wounds of judgment with band-aid comfort. But comfort cannot function apart from a serious grappling with the pain of judgment.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work