pastor || writer || speaker
An article I wrote during the past year was published this week at Preaching Today. It draws from one of my favorite novels of all time, Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If you know McCarthy's writing, you may know it is very rough around the edges. While The Road is also rough around the edges there …
Continue reading "Metaphors for Ministry: Hitting ‘The Road’ with Cormac McCarthy"
This past week our Church Council just finished reading and discussing Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. This is a book that has meant a lot to me over the years. On the inside cover of my copy I have written down various settings where I have led groups through …
Continue reading "The Christian Leader is…: 15 insights from Henri Nouwen’s “In the Name of Jesus”"
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) In the fifth and final section of Eugene …
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 1:1-2) With such strong words as an opening salvo, how could Ecclesiastes equip pastors for ministry? According to Eugene Peterson in Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Ecclesiastes, the fourth of the Meggiloth scrolls, teaches pastors …
In a messy world marked by untimely death and stillbirths, racial injustice and relational ruptures, we all wrestle with the problem of evil and suffering. Does God mean anything or a pastor have anything to say in such situations? Eugene Peterson thinks so. Among other things pastoral work is a decision to deal, on the …
Matthew Erickson 