The Business of Making Saints

Eugene Peterson says, in a 2009 interview in Christianity Today called The Business of Making Saints: 

The problem was, I hadn't learned a way to live organically out of Sunday. I had two models, and neither could help me.

Where did you go for help?

I started discovering people who did it—Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Bernard, Newman, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Rutherford, a lot of the Puritans, and in particular, Dante. These became my mentors, my teachers, my professors. I lived with them.

We've got this wonderful history of Christian spirituality. We've got two thousand years of people who have been listening, writing, doing this. You're in a company of saints who have done this, and they've done it with great freedom and goodness.

These people weren't gullible. They developed a scent for sanctity; they were alert to the way holiness works, which hardly ever fits the stereotypes.

Some of it's an art, but if you live with these people through their writings, you develop the sense of proportion, a scent for truth.

How long did it take to learn pastoral care from these mentors?

After five or seven years, I realized, I can do this. There is a way to live as a pastor during the week that is congruent with the gospel I proclaim on Sunday. This is a pastor. This is what I want to be. I love this life.

I don't want to paint a picture that I got it all straight. It's not something you "get"; it's not like a diploma you can hang. This is a way of life in which you keep re-immersing yourself.

This interview was originally published 

Leaders keeping on learning

In the book, Supervision in the Helping Professions, the authors discuss the need to continue to learn and flourish in your work environment. Since this relates to National Mission's ongoing concern for the health of ministers and leaders in the church, I thought I'd add here a couple of lists they include in their chapter on the topic (notes in brackets are mine).

Firstly, in relation to being effective at work:

1. Be in love with learning. Stay at your learning edge and have a learning project.

2. Be clear about your learning style and keep expanding it. [Knowing your learning style helps you be sure that you're learning at your own pace, not at the pace of others.]

3. Attend to your emotional well-being.

4. Increase your capacity to relate to and engage with others. [They suggest going outside your comfort zone of people you relate to easily.]

5. Attend to your physical well-being - diet, exercise, sleep, breaks. [Days off!]

6. Have a personal or spiritual practice. [For Christian leaders, this means not neglecting those spiritual disciplines - they're often one of the first things to fall off this sort of a list.]

7. Find a group of good co-learners/fellow travellers. [People who encourage you - people who can mentor you.]

The second list will appear in a separate post.

Shifting perspective on youth ministry

Mark Yaconelli, when speaking at a Conference with the curious name of Shift , pointed out a major shift he believes must happen. Through a wide-ranging talk Mark kept coming back to his theme of emptiness and brokenness. Given the many resources, curriculum, and programs available at the conference, it was almost ironic to hear Mark tell youth pastors, "You don’t need anything. You need less. You can come to a conference and get so overwhelmed that you forget you already have everything you need. Your love of your kids and your desire to love God is enough."

Bo Boshers, Executive Director of Youth Ministries for Willow Creek, told the audience that a survey of the conference’s attendees showed that 67% of the youth leaders and students are not being mentored. “Folks, we’ve got to get this one right!” he said. It seems that the need for one-on-one relationships in youth ministry is one of the shifts the conference organizers are concerned with.

Brian McLaren told a story at Shift of his time as a volunteer youth leader in the 1970’s. He asked his youth group to brainstorm a list of things that were major issues in their churches. This list included things like speaking in tongues and contemporary worship music. The group then came up with a list of those things that were important to the group and their friends. This second list reflected the global concerns of the 70’s: nuclear war, communism, famine, and overpopulation. In Brian’s words, “there was nothing in common with those two lists.”

Brian obviously believes that youth leaders have a role in shaping their students to be involved with that second list.

Every kid that I lead to Christ and commitment to the church is going to increase his or her commitment to the first list and will have less time to devote to the second list. Which list is God more interested in?

What do you think?

Being there for the teens in trouble

An article by Simon Collins, from the NZ Herald on Feb 9th, 2008, writes about mentoring programmes that are up and runing in New Zealand, including Brothers in Arms, a Christian group, which was formed in 2006. 'It's one of a growing number of grassroots initiatives showing voluntary goodwill can sometimes turn around young lives.'

The article details several case histories of mentors and youngsters who've built a relationship which has helped the younger person to make progress in their life. Mentors vary in age from twenty-somethings to sixty-somethings, and for the most part they just involve the kids in their lives, giving them a view of the world that's different from the often-limited view they have.

There are at least a half-dozen mentoring groups in New Zealand at present, and the article lists information about them, as well as their website addresses.