Conversations with Rev. Eugene H. Peterson[1932 – 2018]

Transcript (edited for readability).

What a wonderful opportunity we have today, as members of the Collegium for Doxology, to visit with our esteemed friend, previously unknown to us before this conversation, only by his writing, but how immensely he has had an impact on what we do in Doxology. Reverend Eugene Peterson, author of 30 books, and most of them focus on what we do in Doxology, namely, the care of souls. Eugene, your work has been so significant to us. I can't tell you how much we appreciate what you've done for us in contributing to the body of literature and the contemporary situation, and this historic heritage of the care of souls. And I should add that one person's not here — our friend and mentor, John Kleinig, from Australia — extends his greetings and wants you to know how important your work has been for him and the pastors of the Lutheran Church in Australia, as well.

So we're about to embark on an afternoon of conversation here, and since Doxology is about conversing about the care of souls, we're going to have kind of a free-form and free-flowing discussion. And we hope to provide for any of our viewers, and those who come after us, some of the insights that we've gleaned from these conversations. So I think it'd be appropriate if we begin then with prayer.

Heavenly Father, in every generation you pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, so that young men see visions and old men dream dreams. Now grant that your Holy Spirit may guide and direct our conversation this day, so that we, and those who come after us, might be better equipped as servants of Christ and stewards of your sacred mysteries. Grant your blessing from one generation to the next, so that those who are called to the pastoral office might be encouraged in their holy calling, to tend the sheep and lambs of Christ, which he has purchased with his own blood. In his name we pray. Amen.

So, Eugene, just to kind of kick off our conversation today — I know one of your themes that struck a chord with me is the contrast between the American way of doing church and what our Lord has given us in his Word. And I think you frequently characterize this as shopkeepers versus pastors. I'm wondering, as you look back over the decades, if you've seen any shift in that, or how, as our contemporary culture becomes what many people consider more and more secularized — is it easier or harder to be a pastor, do you think?

Being a pastor is difficult. There's just a lot of things going on all the time. And I think there are as many ways to be a pastor well as there are pastors. We've got to make sure that we know what being a pastor is. But the way we do it is who we are, and trying to copy somebody else will not do it. The enthusiasm for church leadership has ruined a lot of pastors. They're given secular models of leadership, and they try to copy them and work them, and sometimes they work. But they're not pastors. They're fundraisers, they're entertainers. And they very soon don't have a congregation — they have a mob. They have a lot of people in the same building, but I — I may be challenged on this, but I think you can only be a pastor to people whose names you know. And when people have 5,000 people listening to them on Sundays because they're good storytellers, good orators — they're not pastors.

So what I'm hoping to encourage pastors to do is to learn the names of everybody in their congregation. And when you get to where there are more than you can handle, divide your church, start another church. But don't try to be a pastor to people you don't know. It's a very relational thing you're doing — to know their name, know their kids, know their grandkids, be in their homes.

When I became a pastor, I had been planning on being a professor. Semitic languages and Greek — Semitic languages were my field. And when I started — as you all know, the first two and a half years we were meeting, I preached from our basement — and I realized after a while that I wasn't preaching. And so I started listening to my congregation, getting acquainted with them. And if I hadn't stayed with that congregation for 30 years, I could never have done The Message, because I was just giving lectures. I was just telling people what they should do. And finally, when I got inside the language world of my congregation, and my kids, the young people — one of the things I remember from those early days, a young girl, a high school girl, came out, I think I put this in The Pastor, and said, "Oh, Pastor, I just love being here. I feel like I'm one of those early Christians in the catacombs." And somebody heard her, and so all the young people started calling this Presbyterian church "the catacombs."

But so much of this was not my own doing. It was what was given to me, and I learned to live with that. I really thought when I became a pastor I'd be pastor of a large church. And it only took me about two years to realize I don't want to be a pastor of a large church — I want to know these people. And so I never did. But I thought if I can teach these people, or lead them into knowing what worship is, to have a life of worship, and develop a sense of maturity in them, and then somehow convey that they are the church — so that I'm not the church. And so I really worked hard at that, just developing an imagination, a lay imagination, a laity imagination, and a worshiping imagination. And when I got that done, I thought, my goal now is to develop a missional congregation.

Well, after about 25 years, I realized I've got a mature congregation, and they know how to worship, and they don't depend on me. I went on a twelve-month sabbatical at one point, about that time, and they never missed me. That year I was gone, the attendance grew, the membership grew, finances grew. And I came back to start work, and a young man who had taken my place when I was gone had organized their leadership retreat — we did that every year. I arrived on Thursday, back in town, and the retreat was all scheduled and provided for, and they were supposed to leave the church at five o'clock. And I got there ten minutes after five, and they were all gone. And I thought, you know, you guys — I waited for you, for 20 years! And it just made me mad. So I got in my car and drove to the retreat center, and about halfway there I thought, you know, this is really a compliment. They don't need me. And they know they don't need me.

So then I thought, you know, this is the time to start being missional. And I didn't know how to do it. I tried everything. I went and read some of these church growth books. I didn't find anything there that I would dare do or want to do.

So I'm imagining, as a professor addressing a group of seminarians about to receive their first call, or maybe preaching at an ordination — are there specific sins that are more pernicious than others in keeping a pastor from being a pastor? Are there specific cultural influences to be more aware of than others that prevent a pastor from being a pastor? What counsel would you give to a brand-new pastor just starting out, trying to be a shepherd to his people?

I think what I've done is ask: what are you good at? What really keeps you going? What makes you get up in the morning? And, you know, some people don't have a gift of language, and maybe they shouldn't be pastors, because this is an oral world we're living in. What I do, when the opportunity is there, I'd say, let's talk about it every couple of weeks — come over, or probably go have lunch with you or something. I did that a lot. I don't think advice-giving really helps a whole lot, unless you know the context it's coming out of. So I did that a lot. Still do that a lot. Most people are really good at something, and they don't know it. But you can find that out if you're curious, and relaxed, and patient.

This may tiptoe just a bit away from preaching as a focus, but what you've serviced is the notion that not everyone is going to be content with what the pastor says, does, chooses — and the pastor has to respond to criticism in a way that is faithful, and in a way that encourages, as opposed to tearing down. When we gather our lay leaders together, we read to them what you've shared about the pastor being lashed fast to the mast of his ordination vow, and that he just sits up straight, as you've said, and there will be a day when we come to you as a committee and we ask that you preach us something else — "Pastor, don't do that." Talk with me, if you'd be willing, a little bit about evaluating the pastor. All of our business people are eager to do it. All of our business people have the forms and protocols to do it rather nicely, in percentage fractions. And yet, how can it be done? Should it be done? And if there is genuine criticism, how might the pastor address that? It's kind of a bundle question for you — evaluating our pastor.

I suppose if we wanted to do something directly about it, we would just say it directly. But until they get the hint of what we're doing, it's not going to work. So I'd say I would ignore that — I did ignore it. But when criticism came up, I would pay attention to it. What was going on here? And usually it was ignorable. I wasn't saying enough about some social issue, or political issue, or something like that. And, you know, I have Republicans and Democrats, and sometimes a communist or so in the congregation, and that's not the point of what I'm doing. I'm talking about a kingdom.

Do you think it's possible, Eugene, to use the reference that Bev made, about being lashed to the mast — do you think it's possible, and where the converse can happen and should happen, where a pastor is not sure what he's supposed to be about, because he's been tempted, seduced — you're supposed to do this, and be this, the CEO, the head cheerleader, whatever it is — and the congregation lashes him to the mast? Does that ever happen? Did that ever happen to you, where you needed to be reminded? You seem to have such clarity about these things, but you also talked about wanting to buy a ticket to Tarshish, which we can come back to some other time. So I wondered if you ever needed to be lashed to the mast.

Yeah, I did. My Tarshish experience was very vivid. I wanted to get out of there so fast. I would do anything to get out of Christ Our King, because they weren't interesting people — they were suburbanites, and they watched television all the time. The TV Guide was the only thing they read. But I just had to grow up. I just had to. And I did that a lot with Jan, just figuring out what was going on.

One of the memorable occasions I had was when I was criticized by one of my elders. We came back from vacation, and my clerk of session said, "Eugene, there are weeds in your garden. You've got to take care of them" — didn't say what they were. But I learned later what they were. One of my elders was going around saying, "We don't pay Peterson to write books." And he was, you know, a respected elder, a doctor, and people would pay attention to him. So — oh, I — at the next session meeting, I said to the session, "I've been — somebody has told me that there's been some talk about — I shouldn't write books. I came here to be a pastor. And I thought I was writing books for you. But if you think I shouldn't write books, I won't write books." And just going over that — I was just really ticked off. And I went on, and I was just kicking the dog and griping to Jan about it. And she said, "Eugene, you know, if you're on a crowded elevator and one person farts, the whole place stinks up. It was just one person." That cured me.

Well, that's good — that person, you're going to appreciate. You know what? He had a lot of trouble with his sons, and he called on me to help, and some help was done.

Yeah, I guess that was enough of a gentle hint that — I think there's a lesson there, that too often we shy away from our detractors when actually we should engage them and minister to them.

Yeah. A lot of things can happen.

Eugene, a question for you then, for perhaps those considering going into the ministry, recognizing that a pastor does lots of things. And there are things he could be doing, there are things he should be doing. From your perspective, what is a pastor, and what does a pastor do?

I think a pastor is a person who is entrusted with a congregation, and is entrusted with the Word of God. Congregation and Bible are a balancing act. You've got to know your Bible, you've got to know your congregation. A lot of pastors these days don't know either one. Megachurch pastors don't know congregation. So, you know, a whole generation — several generations now — have grown up on television and not in a church. They have to cultivate — our pastors have to cultivate a congregational imagination. The congregation's not going to do it for them. But also, we've got an incredible heritage in Scripture, and it's not easy to be familiar with all of it, but you can be.

I went to a seminary in New York called Biblical Seminary, and I was not an exception in this — everybody who graduated from that seminary could recite the names of every paragraph in the Bible, just straight through. That's all we did. We just read the Bible in English. I cheated a little bit and got interested in Greek and Hebrew, but that was beside the point, really. The man who founded the seminary, in 1901 I think, was a Hebrew professor at a Chicago seminary — anyway, I think it was University of Chicago. And he just realized that all these pastors were coming out of school knowing Greek, and Hebrew, and theology, but they didn't know the English Bible. So every course we had started out with the text of the Bible. Theology was Romans, and on and on.

I don't find the pastors I'm conversant with very — I don't know what a congregation is to them. I think it's a group of people that need to be whipped into shape. They don't know the Bible. They get all their sermons off the internet. So I think there's room for people like you. If we don't have that clear focus, I don't think we're too easily distracted. And distraction is a big problem for pastors. You know, a lot of people ask you to do a lot of things. You've got to know how to say no, or maybe. Anne Lamott says — I think one of you told me this, or reminded me of it — "No is a complete sentence." I learned to say that a lot. Well, I haven't learned it very well, actually.

I don't think pastors should delegate hospital visitation — they can have help with it, with the deacons, but I think these people are going to die, some of them, and you want to be able to know them. You want them to be able to know you, and feel familiar with you, at their deathbed. I think that's serious work. Preparing people for a good death used to be the primary work of the priest. That was part of the job description — prepare them for a good death. And that doesn't happen now. I know pastors who avoid the hospital like the plague — it depresses them. Well, get with it. Be depressed. Somebody needs to be depressed, in an appropriate way.

So, you know, there are other things you can get help with. If you have a staff, you can get people who do counseling well. I had several psychiatrists and a couple of psychologists in my congregation, and I would refer people to them, because counseling, as Bev knows, is a strenuous thing — it's tiring. And if you spend all your time counseling, you're going to miss a lot of normal pastoral work, which is getting to know them and dealing with them, not as problems but as people in whom Christ is living. There's nobody else in our society that does that. So we're unique — those are the two things we're unique in, I think. And, of course, the listening, spiritual direction, things like that are dovetailed into that.

Bev: I have a question regarding your deep sensitivity to the well-being of other people, principally those in your congregation. And yet, a realization as well that there are others who share the task of being a shepherd to souls, who struggle with your struggles, who have your doubts and challenges. Do pastors need pastors?

Oh, yeah.

Do they have them?

Some do. I do.

And why do you think those who don't, won't seek one?

They're proud. They're arrogant. They think too much of themselves — they don't need a pastor. But I think all pastors need a pastor. I've had four or five through my lifetime, and some of them didn't know they were my pastor. I remember one time I really found a need for a pastor — I was young, in the early stages of Christ Our King. There was a Scottish pastor in Baltimore, in Wilson, and he had a lovely Scottish accent, and he was a good preacher. And I just thought, you know, I think I'd like to get to know him better. So I called him up and asked if I could come and see him. It's about a 40-minute drive from where I lived, in the inner city of Baltimore. And I asked him — I said, you know, I just need somebody to talk to, and I'm trying to start this new church, our congregation — sorry — could I just come in every other week or so, and pray with you? And he said, "Sure, Eugene."

He was a fierce Barthian — I mean, he was one of the first translators of Barth, and I knew that. But what we did, we went into the chapel every two weeks, on Tuesday. It was a small chapel, and he'd sit next to the wall, on this side, and I'd sit next to the wall on this side, and he'd get out the Scottish prayer book and pray audibly for 20 minutes. And I wouldn't do anything except listen to him. And then he'd say, "Let's get a cup of coffee," and we'd go across the street and have a cup of coffee. And, you know, I grew up Pentecostal — you don't read prayers, you speak in tongues. And I thought, you know, I've never been around somebody who did this. I did that for two years, and I can't tell you — I don't have the words to say what it did, but it changed my life. I mean, it changed my prayer life. Prayer was no longer something that was a technique, a way to get God to do something — it was entering into what God is already doing. If you read it, it's fine. If you don't read it, I just listened to it. So I've had some people do significant things for me who didn't know what they did.

What now, and what do you foresee, are the biggest obstacles to the office of pastor and pastoral care? What do you think is coming next for pastors to contend with?

The big church, megachurch thing is just death on pastors. And when pastors are seduced into wanting to do that, a lot of them get out of the ministry finally. I've seen so many people do that, and it ruins them. There's no substance to what they're doing. So I don't know how deep or widespread that is, but I view it from afar — as far away as I can get, actually. How about you? What do you think?

I don't know — I hope that passes. I mean, I hope the church grows up and realizes that —

No, it does. To be huge is a ridiculous goal. Persecution might do that. And some of the people I come around, a lot of them are just really lonely. Pastoring is lonely work. And we're fortunate if we can find two or three friends, or a group of friends, who you can be honest with, and care for, and be cared about, cared by. It's a vocational hazard.

Yeah, it is. There's no getting around it — it's just part of it. Solitude is good, but loneliness isn't.

That's right.