Quotes from Eugene H. Peterson

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn't go off and leave us- he enters into our trouble and saves us.

Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.

Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God; it whets our appetite.

Waiting means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions.

Prayer gets us in on what God is doing.

God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

The silence that makes it possible to hear God speak also makes it possible for us to hear the world's words for what they really are - tinny and unconvincing lies.

I believe God takes the things in our lives - family, background, education - and uses them as part of his calling. It might not be to become a pastor. But I don't think God wastes anything.

I cannot fail to call the congregation to worship God, to listen to his Word, to offer themselves to God.

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be - you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky - God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from Him.

The moment the organic unity of belief and behaviour is damaged in any way, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we were created.

It's essential for us to develop an imagination that is participatory. Art is the primary way in which this happens. It's the primary way in which we become what we see or hear.

Prayer is the disciplined refusal to act before God acts.

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.

No life of faith can be lived privately. There must be overflow into the lives of others.

Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.

I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.

One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.

The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.