Will Peterson
Will Peterson
William Jamesis a former American football cornerback. He was drafted by the New York Giants in the third round of the 2001 NFL Draft. He played college football at Western Illinois...
art jesus people
Jesus almost never talked in terms of explaining. He was always using enigmatic stories and difficult metaphors. He was always pulling people into some kind of participation.
tasks smooth prophet
The task of the prophet is not to smooth things over but to make things right.
school too-much rhythm
In high school I was very much involved in poetry. You cannot read a poem quickly. There's too much going on there. There are rhythms and alliterations. You have to read poetry slow, slow, slow to absorb it all.
helping-others suffering way
Suffering attracts fixers the way road-kills attract vultures.
wine water use
Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.
jesus giving people
The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We're called to have people follow Jesus. We're called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies.
thinking missing incredibles
I get asked, 'What do you miss most about being a pastor?' I think it's the intimacy, the incredible gift of intimacy. You go through death with somebody, with their families, and there's an intimacy that comes through that that is just incomparable.
love feelings acting
Love is not a word that describes my feelings; it is not a technique by which I fulfill my needs; it is not an ideal, abstract and pure, on which I meditate or discourse. It is acting in correspondence with or in response to God in relation to persons.
sunday imagination important
The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, 'Let us worship God.' If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor.
religious jesus sex
Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence--religious meaning--apart from God as revealed through the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but at least, in America, almost never against the crowds.
ordinary creation sabbath
If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.
people problem poor
The poor are not a problem to be solved but a people to join.
jesus mean blessing
"Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us; it is about God, and how God forms us. It is not, in the first place, about what we do or don't do; it is about God - completing and resting and blessing and sanctifying. These are all things that we don't know much about......But it does mean stopping and being quiet long enough to see - open-mouthed - with wonder - resurrection wonder.....we cultivate the "fear of the Lord". Our souls are formed by what we cannot work up or take charge of. We respond and enter into what the resurrection of Jesus continues to do."
sorry people focus
Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...'I will do my best with what is here.'