Eugene Peterson lives a life of unlikely juxtapositions. He is an introvert’s introvert, yet he planted a church and served as its senior pastor for 29 years. He is a scholar of biblical languages who searches through dusty volumes for the precise meaning of a word and then, as a poet, paints meaning with colorful and imprecise strokes. He has rejected the formulaic patterns of success in the Christian publishing world, but has become an industry superstar. He eschews information technology—only his wife and children have his e-mail address (dang it!)—but he reaches out to hundreds of thousands each day through The Message and more than 30 other books he has written.
Retired from the pastorate of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, and from Regent College, where he served as professor of Spiritual Theology, Eugene lives with his wife, Jan (much more the extrovert) in the home where he grew up, on the shore s of Flathead Lake in Lakeside, Montana. It was there he wrote one of his latest books, The Jesus Way: Conversations on the Ways
That Jesus Is the Way. That important volume inspired RENOVARÉ to build its third international conference around the theme “The Jesus Way.”
Before giving the opening address, Eugene and his wife, Jan, were gracious to meet with my wife, Regina, and me for dinner at the oldest Mexican restaurant on the River Walk in San Antonio. You are invited to listen in on portions of that address and then to parts of our conversation.
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A few years ago my wife started reading Winnie the Pooh to me. She had read it to our children 40 years ago, and I had overheard parts of it. But she thought it would be good if I got it whole and firsthand before it was too late.
One evening while she was reading, I was watching the autumn light leak out of the mountain lake that is our front yard and letting the words of the story drift through my consciousness. And then, I was fully awake: the blurred world in which I teach and write on Christian spiritual theology came into crisp focus. I saw the people I was working with in a fresh way.
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