Spirituality is no different from what we’ve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It’s just ordinary stuff. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people’s lives, and you ruin your own life. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
If people don’t know their pastor, it’s easy to put the pastor on a pedestal and depersonalize him or her. It’s also easy for pastors, who don’t know their congregations, simply to classify congregants as saved or unsaved, involved or not involved, tithers or non-tithers. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
I get asked, ‘What do you miss most about being a pastor?’ I think it’s the intimacy, the incredible gift of intimacy. You go through death with somebody, with their families, and there’s an intimacy that comes through that that is just incomparable. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
I cannot fail to call the congregation to worship God, to listen to his Word, to offer themselves to God. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
When you are part of a megachurch, you have no responsibility to anybody else. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
Pastors need to know what’s going on in the world and what has been going on for 4,000 years. We need a way to read Scripture which is imaginative, interpretive. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We’re called to have people follow Jesus. We’re called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
I think pastors are the worst listeners. We’re so used to speaking, teaching, giving answers. We must learn to be quiet, quit being so verbal, learn to pay attention to what’s going on, and listen. Eugene H. Peterson Read Quote
