Pastor : A Memoir
$17.99
This book is the story of my formation as a pastor, and how the vocation of pastor formed me. I had never planned to be a pastor, never was aware of any inclination to be a pastor, never ‘knew what I was going to be when I grew up.’ And then–at the time it seemed to arrive abruptly–there it was: Pastor. I can’t imagine now not being a pastor. I was a pastor long before I knew I was a pastor; I just never had a name for it. Once the name arrived, all kinds of things, seemingly random experiences and memories, gradually began to take a form that was congruent with who I was becoming, like finding a glove that fit my hand perfectly-a calling, a fusion of all the pieces of my life, a vocation: Pastor. But it took a while.’ In 1962, Eugene Peterson was asked by his denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, to begin a new church outside Baltimore, in Bel Air, Maryland. And so was born Christ Our King Presbyterian Church. But Peterson quickly learned that he was not exactly sure what a pastor should do. He had met many ministers in his life, from his Pentecostal upbringing in Montana to his seminary days in New York, and he admired a few, but for all his study and all his experience, he soon discovered that the variety and quantity of the tasks put before him were overwhelming. The demands would drown him unless he figured out a way to measure what the heart of the job really was and whether he was living up to his calling. And that he was he set out to do. What Peterson discovered is that back then, just like now, few people understood what it meant to pastor a church, how he would measure himself, what he would do day to day after Sunday’s service, how he would know if he was doing it well. After 29 years in the pulpit of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, he found that being a pastor wasn’t about how many people filled his pews each week but rather about ‘paying attention and calling attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between men and women, with each other and with God.’ The Pastor steers away from abstractions, offering instead a beautiful rendering of a life tied to the physical world-the land, the holy space, the people-all shaping his path as a pastor and his faith. We expect this book to be widely reviewed and discussed. Peterson takes on church marketing, mega pastors, and the church’s too cozy relationship to American glitz and consumerism. We think it will become the definitive statement on the subject for years to come.
in stock within 3-5 days of online purchase
SKU (ISBN): 9780061988219
ISBN10: 0061988219
Eugene Peterson
Binding: Trade Paper
Published: April 2012
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers
Related products
-
Women Of The Bible Speak
$25.99The women of the Bible lived timeless stories–by examining them, we can understand what it means to be a woman of faith.
People unfamiliar with Scripture often assume that women play a small, secondary role in the Bible. But in fact, they were central figures in numerous Biblical tales. It was Queen Esther’s bravery at a vital point in history which saved her entire people. The Bible contains warriors like Jael, judges like Deborah, and prophets like Miriam. The first person to witness Jesus’ resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who promptly became the first Christian evangelist, eager to share the news which would change the world forever.
In The Women of the Bible Speak, Fox News Channel’s Shannon Bream opens up the lives of sixteen of these Biblical women, arranging them into pairs and contrasting their journeys. In pairing their stories, Shannon helps us reflect not only on the meaning of each individual’s life, but on how they relate to each other and to us.
From the shepherdesses of ancient Israel who helped raise the future leaders of the people of God, to the courageous early Christians, the narrative of the Bible offers us many vivid and fascinating female characters. In their lives we can see common struggles to resist bitterness, despair, and pride, and to instead find their true selves in faith, hope, and love. In studying these heroes of the faith, we can find wisdom and warnings for how to better navigate our own faith journeys.
The Women of the Bible Speak outlines the lessons we can take from the valor of Esther, the hope of Hannah, the audacity of Rahab, and the faith of Mary. In broadening each woman’s individual story, Shannon offers us a deeper understanding of each, and wisdom and insights that can transform our own lives today.
Add to cart2 in stock
-
On Earth As In Heaven
$29.99Today’s leading Bible scholar, Anglican bishop, and acclaimed author N. T. Wright returns with a collection of pastoral excerpts, carefully curated from his widely celebrated books, that will inspire those wanting to cultivate a life “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Modern pastors and their flocks have long considered N. T. Wright a role model for being a thoughtful Christian in today’s world. His bestselling books, including Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Simply Jesus, and After You Believe, have guided Christians in their belief and practice of the faith. Now, Christians can rely on his wisdom to guide them through each day of their lives with this thoughtful book of daily meditations, featuring short selections from his classic works.
With reflections on themes such as faith, mission, character, and God’s work in the world, these daily meditations will invigorate and uplift Christians in their search to live their faith authentically and biblically in today’s world.
Add to cart2 in stock
-
Great By Choice
$29.99The new question
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.The new study
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins’s prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness-beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years-in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.
The new findings
The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as:The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.
The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include: 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe.Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck.
This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncer
Add to cart1 in stock
-
Grief Observed
$17.99Written by C. S. Lewis with love and humility, this brief but poignant volume was first published in 1961 and courageously encounters the anger and heart-break that followed the death of his wife, an American-born poet, Joy Davidman. Handwritten entries from notebooks that Lewis found in his home capture the doubt and anguish that we all face in times of great loss. He questions his beliefs in this graceful and poignant affirmation of faith in the face of senseless loss.
Add to cart1 in stock
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.