“Everyone has their own version of the ‘gospel’ story: creation – who I am or who I should be
fall – what’s wrong with me and the world
redemption – what’s the solution
consummation – what I hope for”
“If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world.”
“The task of preaching is to proclaim truth. It is the moment that brings the truth into the present. Much like anamnesis in the Lord’s Supper is much more than intellectual recall of the Lord’s death and resuurection, so preaching is more than recalling and teaching information from the past (in the Bible) about God. Preaching is a speech-act. It is the proclaiming of the truth out of Scripture over us so as to bring the truth into being - by the Spirit. Preaching is a truth making event - not in the sense that the truth is invented here - but that the Spirit - through the gifts - brings it into reality. (I’ll have to defend myself against the accusation that I’m a Bultmannian sometime). Much like Jesus said in Luke chapter 4:21 - “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in its hearing” - proclamation is a speaking forth of an interpretation (from Scripture) of our lives in terms of who God is, the gospel and what He is doing to bring it about in our lives and thru us into the world. If anything then, far from trying to make the Scriptures relevant - the goal of preaching is to make everything else irrelevant. It is the renarrating of our selves corporately into God.”
“Grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would encourage us to think sin less serious, vice more attractive, or virtue less important; grant, O God, that we may never listen to any teaching which would dethrone Jesus Christ from the topmost place.” — William Barclay (1907-1978) William Barclay on prayer: “Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God’s voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.”
“The role of the pastor is to keep the perceptions about God clean… We gather together on a Sunday to build incrementally a true, whole picture of God”
— Non-verbatim quote from Eugene Peterson in an interview from 2007 2 years ago
“Often the main limitation to church planting is a failure of imagination. [p92]”
“America’s Spiritual Weakness
“The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. And the more there is of us, the less there is of God.” — Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places”
“The work, for example, of engaging with the sick, the grieving and the dying, as well as with the moral issues of such roles in society as those concerned with wealth creation or medical ethics, is indeed pastoral. It is the shift from the maintenance and ‘keeping people happy’ mode in which the church all too often operates, into engagement with these situations that will bring the church into the pastoral-in-mission mode of operation.”
