Outline To The Book 'The Pastor' By Eugene Peterson

In his memoir “The Pastor”, Eugene Peterson, renowned biblical scholar, Christian author, and Presbyterian pastor, offers us a glimpse into what it truly means to be a pastor. He gives insight not just to the destination of pastoral leadership, but gives detail to the journey that led him both to his calling and to his pastoral placement. The tagline to the book, “Every step an arrival”, rings clear throughout the book as he shows us that his experiences growing up in the Montana wilderness, and the steps God brought him through in his early work as a pastor were not just means to an end, but rather purposed by God to be destinations in themselves. Peterson’s message seems to echo the thought that it is in the journey we find true meaning,

In reading this book, you can always see God’s hand in developing Eugene, even in his young life. Perhaps In these steps, his ultimate trajectory was not crystal clear, but one doesn’t need to look very hard to see God shaping and molding him for life as a faith shepherd. Even in the early chapters, we see him mention his father’s butcher shop as a sort of congregation, giving him insight into what a church should be. From these experiences, to the ones he encountered as seminary in New York, to his often trial and error experiences pastoring “Christ Our King” church, he always exhibits an attentiveness. A sort of “listening ear” that gives him insight into God’s way of understanding church and people instead of the all too common American way of understanding those things. Armed with understanding and insight, Peterson shows us how one should truly pastor a church. Not as a man bent on growth, competition, and the modern definition of religious meaning, but as a man truly called to pastor in the godly sense of the word. To lead his congregation in a way oriented towards true faith, not the glimmering, shiny view of it all as offered by those focused on building rather than

One of these shortcomings comes in the fact that Peterson’s journey seems to be one of success. Where he encounters challenges and problems, but that they shape his character and build him to be the wise pastoral figure he turns out to be by the end of his memoir. I would have liked for him to pay more attention to his failures. Not just to his challenges and trials, but to the times when he actually failed. There must have been more times such as these in his life. Failure is part of the human experience, and there is little doubt that Peterson must have encountered his fair share of these, but the book, in my opinion, while giving us pictures of his challenges, doesn’t paint a clear enough picture of the failures that can and will come on one’s journey to become a godly pastor. The rough gritty failure; the kind that makes one want to give up and turn around, but that God uses to shape and mold us into the people he would have us become. Peterson’s story seems to be, at times, too good to be true. And his stories can seem stretched and embellished to the point where one would have their doubts as to the authenticity of his journey. Including more of his humanity within his book would have grounded him further inside humanity and made his path one that would seem more relatable to readers. Peterson is not a superhuman, but