Eugene Peterson: His Life and Work: Home

Eugene Peterson (1932-2018) grew up poor in Kalispell, Montana, during the Great Depression. His father was a butcher who worked long hours to keep his young family fed, so Peterson was raised by mother, who brought him along to Pentecostal tent revivals where she sang and preached to the hard-up miners and lumberjacks of the remote valleys. Peterson spent most of his career as a Presbyterian minister serving churches in New York and Maryland, but he returned to the Rocky Mountains of his childhood for regular pilgrimages throughout his life. He would spend the last years of his life in his home in Lakeside, Montana, where he would pass away in 2018.

Peterson is best known for The Message--a paraphrase of the Bible into contemporary, colloquial English, but he has also authored dozens of books of poetry, memoir, biblical commentary, and practical theology. Peterson spent nearly his entire life in ministry, first as a pastor at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, then as a professor at Regent Theological Seminary, where he prepared his students for the demands of ministering to Christ's church (the American Church, like the American wilderness, "has twenty ways to kill you," Peterson observed).

Besides The Message, Peterson is best known for his writings on Christian discipleship. The American Church has lost sight of the beauty of holiness, Peterson argues. It has little appetite for the disciplines that lead to growth, or the careful attention to God's word that leads to obedience. It is the pastor's job to call the people of God out of a world of noise and chaos back to a place of attention, contemplation, and obedience. Far too often, pastors opt out of the hard work of shepherding their congregations, preferring to become God's middle managers instead. Peterson writes passionately against this tendency: "I don't want to end up a bureaucrat in the time-management business for God, or a librarian cataloguing timeless truths. Salvation is kicking in the womb of creation right now, any time now. Pay attention. Be ready."

This guide provides only a very brief introduction to a very long and productive life.