Book: The Contemplative Pastor

Book: The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction

Eugene H. Peterson is the pastor / author here. Rather than peddling a formula for church growth, or how to be more effective, he returns to the basics of Christianity in his search for the basics of Christian leadership.

There are a few tips on how to make his principles work: his notion of the unbusy pastor is achieved by answering undue time demands with "I’m sorry, my appointment calendar will not allow it". He sees the aim of the pastor as teaching people to pray, not teaching people all the things he learned as college.

While I found his writing style tough at times – he has more of a penchant for poetry than I’m used to in my book-reading – there is much worthy of consideration in this volume.

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2 Comments

  1. […] Sure, there was some interesting content in the biblical theology section of the class: the history of the way that people have understood the bible, and the way it fits together, make for some interesting reading. Having a better understanding of how far we take the postmodern idea of the way that a reader is affected by a text was also worthwhile, but the main thing for me today was the discussion around the book The Contemplative Pastor. […]

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