Every. Seat. Taken. Long before the start of the service. So, next time your pastor complains about people sitting in the "sinner's row," you might ask where he or she sits when given the chance!
Busted
Here's a photo I took of the back row at the recent officers' councils (pastors' retreat) of The Salvation Army's Northwest Division:
Every. Seat. Taken. Long before the start of the service. So, next time your pastor complains about people sitting in the "sinner's row," you might ask where he or she sits when given the chance!
Every. Seat. Taken. Long before the start of the service. So, next time your pastor complains about people sitting in the "sinner's row," you might ask where he or she sits when given the chance!
Life's Change Agent
Steve Jobs died yesterday. The internet has been filled with comments and reflections. I took some time last night to reflect on Steve's own comments about his impending death, in 2005 in his the Stanford commencement address. His words are worth pondering, even meditating on: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart....
Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent.
The Pastor
If I were Eugene Peterson, I might have counted a book like Leap Over a Wall as my "life work." Or, certainly, The Contemplative Pastor. Or, say, his pastoral trio of Under the Unpredictable Plant, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, and Working the Angles. Or--come on, now--The Message translation of the Bible, his translation of the Old and New Testaments into "American." Given the accomplishment and success he has enjoyed as a writer (not to mention his respected stints as professor in several institutions of higher learning), he might be excused if he titled his memoir something else. But he called it The Pastor: A Memoir. Because, he explains, his calling and vocation are "pastor," through which his writing and teaching run.
Parts of The Pastor rang with familiarity to me, as he has related much of his story in earlier works. But it's all interesting and insightful, and informative for anyone with an interest in pastoral ministry. I especially appreciated these lines from chapter 36:
You are at your pastoral best when you are not noticed. To keep this vocation healthy requires constant self-negation, getting out of the way. A certain blessed anonymity is inherent in pastoral work.Like most of Peterson's writings, The Pastor is an absorbing and thought-provoking book.
Three Colleagues
Eugene Peterson, in his memoir, The Pastor, writes:
Peter Marshall. I first discovered the great Scottish-American preacher, Peter Marshall, when I was a boy. I remember being entranced by the movie, A Man Called Peter, on our black-and-white Sylvania television. He was the much-admired pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and U.S. Senate Chaplain in the late 1940s. I must have been a teenager when I read the book on which that movie was based, and in my late teens (I think) when I first discovered a book of his sermons: Mr. Jones, Meet the Master. That collection, and others I soon acquired and devoured, probably influenced my preaching--then and now--more than any other single influence. His flair for dramatic narrative, his formatting, his way of approaching a text or a topic, are models to me, to this day.
Samuel Logan Brengle. I also discovered The Salvation Army's "prophet of holiness" in my teens. He died twenty-two years before I was born, but I became acquainted with him through his writings and the writings of others about him. As a teenager, I read Clarence Hall’s inspiring biography of Brengle, Portrait of a Prophet, and as a result began systematically reading his books. By the time I was twenty, I had read them all: Helps to Holiness, Heart Talks on Holiness, When the Holy Ghost is Come, The Soul-Winner’s Secret, Resurrection Life and Power, The Way of Holiness, The Guest of the Soul, Ancient Prophets and Modern Problems, and Love-Slaves. His Helps to Holiness is one of six books I reread every three years (two each year). Perhaps more than any other person, living or dead, Commissioner Brengle taught and guided me as a young man, and his influence remains with me to this day.
Thomas Merton. In contrast to Marshall and Brengle, I didn't discover Thomas Merton in my teens. And I list him here as a fellow traveler and colleague not primarily because of his writings (which have blessed me), but mainly as a representative of his monastery, The Abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky. Merton entered the monastic community of the Abbey of Gethsemani in December 1941 and lived there the rest of his life (he died in 1968). Roughly thirty years later, I visited the abbey for the first time, on a weekend silent prayer retreat. God used that place to open to me a new life of prayer that has sustained, deepened, and guided me ever since (I've written a little about that here and here and here).
So, if I were to choose, like Eugene Peterson, the portraits of three "mentors" or colleagues to frame and place in my pastor's study, so to speak, it would be these three men. I would want my ministry to be characterized by the preaching depth and sensitivity of Marshall, the personal holiness of Brengle, and the contemplative prayer life of Merton and the monks at Gethsemani.
Two or three months [later], I removed all of my academic diplomas from the wall of my study and replaced them with the framed portraits of three men whose company I wanted to keep as I lived into my newly realized vocational identity [as a pastor]....My picks for mentors were John Henry Newman, Alexander Whyte, and Baron Friedrich von Hugel--the company I would keep to stay in touch with the conditions in which I was now working. The three, though long dead, were no strangers--I had been in prayerful conversation with them for a long time--but now I embraced them as colleagues, not just as admired ancestors.As Peterson often does, he got me thinking. Who would I choose as co-travelers, colleagues, in my life as a pastor. Three people occurred to me almost as soon as I asked the question:
Peter Marshall. I first discovered the great Scottish-American preacher, Peter Marshall, when I was a boy. I remember being entranced by the movie, A Man Called Peter, on our black-and-white Sylvania television. He was the much-admired pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and U.S. Senate Chaplain in the late 1940s. I must have been a teenager when I read the book on which that movie was based, and in my late teens (I think) when I first discovered a book of his sermons: Mr. Jones, Meet the Master. That collection, and others I soon acquired and devoured, probably influenced my preaching--then and now--more than any other single influence. His flair for dramatic narrative, his formatting, his way of approaching a text or a topic, are models to me, to this day. 
Samuel Logan Brengle. I also discovered The Salvation Army's "prophet of holiness" in my teens. He died twenty-two years before I was born, but I became acquainted with him through his writings and the writings of others about him. As a teenager, I read Clarence Hall’s inspiring biography of Brengle, Portrait of a Prophet, and as a result began systematically reading his books. By the time I was twenty, I had read them all: Helps to Holiness, Heart Talks on Holiness, When the Holy Ghost is Come, The Soul-Winner’s Secret, Resurrection Life and Power, The Way of Holiness, The Guest of the Soul, Ancient Prophets and Modern Problems, and Love-Slaves. His Helps to Holiness is one of six books I reread every three years (two each year). Perhaps more than any other person, living or dead, Commissioner Brengle taught and guided me as a young man, and his influence remains with me to this day.
Thomas Merton. In contrast to Marshall and Brengle, I didn't discover Thomas Merton in my teens. And I list him here as a fellow traveler and colleague not primarily because of his writings (which have blessed me), but mainly as a representative of his monastery, The Abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky. Merton entered the monastic community of the Abbey of Gethsemani in December 1941 and lived there the rest of his life (he died in 1968). Roughly thirty years later, I visited the abbey for the first time, on a weekend silent prayer retreat. God used that place to open to me a new life of prayer that has sustained, deepened, and guided me ever since (I've written a little about that here and here and here).So, if I were to choose, like Eugene Peterson, the portraits of three "mentors" or colleagues to frame and place in my pastor's study, so to speak, it would be these three men. I would want my ministry to be characterized by the preaching depth and sensitivity of Marshall, the personal holiness of Brengle, and the contemplative prayer life of Merton and the monks at Gethsemani.
Church of the Week: Valley Assembly, Spokane Valley, WA
I had the blessing this morning of worshiping with my friends Eleonore and Reg Forder at Valley Assembly just a stone's throw from our lodgings and venue for Friday and Saturday's ACW Conference.
Soon after entering the broad vestibule, I found the coffee service (no surprise there) and--be still my heart--biscuits and gravy bar. My kinda church.
I snapped a pic of the auditorium about 20 minutes before the service started:
Right on time, the worship team assembled, with musicians (including saxes, trumpet, and trombone) on one end of the stage...
And a large group of singers in choir on the other end.
The worship was lovely, a blessing. I LOVED hearing the trumpet adding glosses from time to time!
The speaker was missionary Stan Drew, from Swaziland, who spoke from the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6, very nice job.
After church, Reg and Eleonore dropped me off at my hotel downtown (which I'll blog about on Hither & Yon). So glad to have worshiped with them...and my brothers and sisters at Valley Assembly.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Soon after entering the broad vestibule, I found the coffee service (no surprise there) and--be still my heart--biscuits and gravy bar. My kinda church.
I snapped a pic of the auditorium about 20 minutes before the service started:
Right on time, the worship team assembled, with musicians (including saxes, trumpet, and trombone) on one end of the stage...
And a large group of singers in choir on the other end.
The worship was lovely, a blessing. I LOVED hearing the trumpet adding glosses from time to time!
The speaker was missionary Stan Drew, from Swaziland, who spoke from the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6, very nice job.
After church, Reg and Eleonore dropped me off at my hotel downtown (which I'll blog about on Hither & Yon). So glad to have worshiped with them...and my brothers and sisters at Valley Assembly.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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