I spent three years learning from Eugene Peterson. I mention it loudly and often, not because I’m bragging (but, you know, neener neener neener), but because he was so incredibly formative to me. He was translating the Bible at the time and he would give us bits and pieces of the Message – sort of using us as a dry run for bits of the Psalms, John 1, stuff like that. (My friend Wendy, who is a Wycliffe Bible Translator, says she’s heard experienced translators say that the Message is the best translation of John 1. Neat, eh? Something we like has academic clout!) Eugene gave me a framework for pastoring long before I even knew I wanted to cultivate souls. He gave me the gift of story, returning me the language of my childhood, which just so happens to be the native tounge of the postmodern world. He and Jan gave me hope that marriage could withstand, and even thrive within a lifetime of ministry. Which, dang, you just don’t see that much, you know?

Here are some notes from Eugene that I recently unearthed. I have reams and reams of them in files. But these are–I kid you not—written on a stack of napkins. I took them at a luncheon for pastors that I went to when I was on staff at the big church. And now, I pass them on to you.

• Who are you? A pastor. What are you good for? Most of what we do is just stand there and walk around – and that’s how people get the gospel.

• Let’s not have any God talk. God talk is when our talking has slipped away from the way we are living.

• The way we do things are as subject to heresy as the things we say. Our ways must reflect Jesus. We are in crisis – not a crisis of truth, but of means. Our means do not fit the ways of Jesus. The way of love is a long-term arduous way. We can’t rush it.

• As leaders in the church we have to be willing and prepared rather than using un-gospel means. Moses, at the end of his ministry, was told by God “as soon as you’re in the grave the people will turn to other gods.”

• Isaiah – after an amazing supernatural ordination, God tells him “your whole ministry will be blockheads and stumps.”

• Our number one problem is treating people not as souls, but as either problems or consumers or recruits. The word “resource” identifies a person as something that can be used. “Dysfunctional” is not a personal word. It’s a mechanical word. It’s a word for carburetors, not for people. It erodes dignity. God does not treat people as “dysfunctional” (project) or “functional” (resource). Souls are always in the image of God.

• True God-talk can only come organically out of the way we live, the scripture-inspired life of the kingdom, the way of love.

Thank you Eugene. I love you very much.