pastor || writer || speaker
Last Friday, I read a pointed, pastoral call to basic attention to God and His word throughout our lives, and it resonated so deeply with me that I wanted to share it. These words come from Eugene Peterson's essay "Back to Square One: God Said (The Witness of Holy Scripture)," included in a collection of …
Continue reading "Returning to Square One: Eugene Peterson on the Essence of Christian Spirituality"
The past year has been an interesting one for pastors in North America. A series of colossal moral failures from famous pastors is matched only by the rash of recent pastoral suicides. The heartbreak on one side and the outrage on the other leaves many pastors simultaneously sympathetic and disappointed. In that dark valley, pastors, …
Continue reading "Learning to Minister: John Chrysostom’s On the Priesthood"
We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness. Only discord can come of the attempt to share solitude. True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One's inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one's most intimate sources. In consequence, one responds more clearly to other …
In my ongoing efforts to re-learn pastoral ministry, I am turning to books commended through the ages about what it means to be a pastor. One of those I just recently read was St. John Chrysostom's brief work, Six Books on the Priesthood. I share these comments that I found particularly helpful, from the end of …
Continue reading "John Chrysostom on Preaching to please God and not for human praise"
In his book A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer relates an old Hasidic tale that examines the tension between the limitations within our current reality and the possibility of our hearts opening into a new reality. He writes: The pupil comes to the rebbe and asks, "Why does Torah tell us to 'place these words upon …
Matthew Erickson 