Why pastors?

"We are there for one reason and one reason only: to preach and to pray (the two primary modes of our address). We are there to focus the overflowing, cascading energies of joy, sorrow, delight, or appreciation, if only for a moment but for as long as we are able, on God. We are there to say 'God' personally, to say his name clearly, distinctly, unapologetically, in proclamations and in prayers. We are there to say it without hemming and hawing, without throat clearing and without shuffling, without propagandizing, proselytizing, or manipulating. We have no other task. We are not needed to add to what is there. We are required only to say the name: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. 

All men and women hunger for God. The hunger is masked and misinterpreted in many ways, but it is always there. Everyone is on the verge of crying out “My Lord and my God!” but the cry is drowned out by doubts or defiance, muffled by the dull ache of their routines, masked by their cozy accommodations with mediocrity. Then something happens — a word, an event, a dream — and there is a push toward awareness of an incredible Grace, a dazzling Desire, a defiant Hope, a courageous Faithfulness. But awareness, as such, is not enough. Untended, it trickles into religious sentimentalism or romantic blubbering. Or, worse, it hardens into patriotic hubris or pharisaic snobbery. 

The pastor is there to nudge the awareness past subjectivities and ideologies into the open and say 'God.'"

-Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant

Comments

[adam lehman]

I wish more and more pastors would catch onto Peterson's work instead of reading every new great business book.....

[robin dugall]

man, great great great quote! I have almost all of EP's books but that one...gotta drop the bucks now!

[Dan]

Bob,

Do you agree with this quote? If so, how do you spend personally your time as the church leader of Evergreen? Preaching and praying like Eugene says you should be spending your time?

[Religious]

Nice post .... I wish more and more people start thinking like u :)