I came across this in my devotions while reading Eugene Peterson’s Living the Message:
What are the actual means by which I carry out this pastoral vocation, this ordained ministry, this professional commitment to God’s word and God’s grace in my life and the lives of the people to whom I preach and give the sacraments, among whom I command a life for others in the name of Jesus Christ? What connects these great realities of God and the great realities of salvation to the geography of this parish and in the chronology of this week? The answer among the masters whom I consult doesn’t change: a trained attentiveness to God in prayer, in Scripture reading, in spiritual direction. This has not been tried and discarded because it didn’t work, but tried and found difficult (and more than a little bit tedious) and so shelved in favor of something or other that could be fit into a busy pastor’s schedule.
