"The Amen gathers what has just happened into the Maranatha of the about to happen and produces a Benediction."
Eugene Peterson
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
The Pastoral Work of Prayer & Parables
“The quiet (or noisy) closet life of prayer enters into partnership with the Spirit that strives still with every human heart, a wrestling match in holiness. And parables are the consciousness-altering words that slip past falsifying platitude and invade the human spirit with Christ-truth.
This is our primary work in the real world. But we need continual convincing. The people for whom we are praying and among whom we are telling parables are seduced into supposing that their money and ambition are making the world turn on its axis. There are so many of them and so few of us, making it difficult to maintain our convictions. It is easy to be seduced along with them.”
http://ref.ly/o/ldlib17/55384 via the Logos Bible Android app.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Yep (Eugene Peterson quote on pastoring)
"...my job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives. It’s hard to do, because our whole culture is going the other direction, saying that if you’re smart enough and get the right kind of help, you can solve all your problems. The truth is, there aren’t very many happy people in the Bible. But there are people who are experiencing joy, peace, and the meaning of Christ’s suffering in their lives.
The work of spirituality is to recognize where we are—the particular circumstances of our lives—to recognize grace and say, “Do you suppose God wants to be with me in a way that does not involve changing my spouse or getting rid of my spouse or my kids, but in changing me, and doing something in my life that maybe I could never experience without this pain and this suffering?”
Sometimes I think all I do as pastor is speak the word “God” in a situation in which it hasn’t been said before, where people haven’t recognized his presence. Joy is the capacity to hear the name and to recognize that God is here. There’s a kind of exhilaration because God is doing something and, even in a little way, it’s enough at the moment."
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Avoid Magic Turkish Delight
"... there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food."
CS Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe of Edmund leaving the Beavers for the Queen's castle.
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