Category: Books and Quotations

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Real Shepherds: Thomas Oden on pastoral leadership as service

In Thomas Oden's Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, he takes one chapter to reflect on the analogy of pastor as shepherd. In the midst of that chapter, he strikes at the heart of what I think is missing within much of pastoral ministry as it is currently practiced in North America: pastoral authority approached as service. The …

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Hearing with Our Eyes [Working the Angles with Eugene Peterson, part 6]

Over the past several weeks, I have been reflecting on Eugene Peterson's book Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity. I am doing this in part as a way to honor the numerous ways that Peterson shaped my approach to pastoral ministry, but also as an attempt to reconsider - and perhaps recover - the …

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Freedom with God: the radiant seal of spontaneity in virtuous living

Josef Pieper writes about strenuous effort versus free spontaneity in living the virtuous life with God: The strain of self-mastery, which for us countrymen of Kant is inseparable from any concept of upbringing and moderation and is generally tied to and fused with the concept of virtue, is an accompanying phenomenon only of less perfect …

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Praying by the Book [Working the Angles with Eugene Peterson, part 5]

Following his reflections on the shortcomings of modern pastoral ministry in regard to prayer, Eugene Peterson turns his attention to how a pastor develops the life of prayer. In a world of quick fixes and shortcuts, Peterson's starting advice on prayer is perhaps more necessary than ever: "Be slow to pray" (43). Why should we …

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