In this special episode we sit down to talk about the life and legacy of Eugene Peterson.
First, I think Eugene’s generosity of spirit [most marks me]… he should have never let me into his life, but he did… he’s a pastor…
Eugene’s commitment to the life of the mind [also marks me]… from 6am to 11am every day he would lock himself in his study to be with the Lord and his own mind… and then would spend the rest of the day at church with open office hours till 5pm…
These days people read blogs… Eugene spent 25 hours a week diving deep and then produced for the world… that inspires me as a pastor not to cut corners…
Most of us discovered Eugene when the Message version of the Bible came out… it introduced us to this man and awakened our curiosity… and then we couldn’t get enough…
When I went out to see Eugene in 2010, a lot of my questions were about the pastoral vocation I saw in his books, which I was having difficulty reconciling with my context… the thing that stuck with me about my visit was that Eugene said that there was no perfect context to do ministry…
Eugene taught me not to romanticize or idealize small church… demonic activity happens there as everywhere… you need to learn the prevailing idolatry of your place and stand against it…
I love the story of why Eugene wrote the Message Bible… he wrote it for his Sunday school class… he rewrote the book of Galatians for his class, and found it was helpful to younger people who were coming to faith in his church…
What I find interesting about the Message was that he did it for the sake of his congregation and not to sell books… it’s almost like the Lord winked at him and said, “Because you care about my bride, I’m gonna bless this…”
Eugene would say that busyness is an illness of the spirit… that it is a violence against time… when I heard that I thought it wasn’t possible [to do ministry that way in my context]… but I’ve learned that you can…
The last time I was with Eugene I told him of the impact he has had at New Life… of the transformation we’ve experienced because we were reading him… so much of who we are and what we’re doing is because of him… I wanted him to know that the church is listening to him…