by Eugene H. Peterson
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Product Description
Eugene Peterson issues a provocative call for pastors to abandon their preoccupation with image and standing, administration, success, and economic viability, and to return to the three basic acts critical to the pastoral ministry: praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 better than I expected!, 2007-03-13
Excellent condition, like new. Couldn't have asked for a better copy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A call to prayer, 2006-12-27
On the very first page, the author tells us that he is angry. He has a bone to pick with other pastors. Specifically, it is with those whom he feels have abandoned their calling to be totally devoted to preaching and to prayer to do other work within the church. To this end, he sets forth what he considers to be the three main angles which are meant to support the structure of church ministry.
The fundamental angles set forth by the author are prayer, the use of the Scriptures and the development of a "spiritual direction." The first two of these are obvious in their scope. Spiritual direction is defined abstractly as that aspect of ministry that touches all of the details of life. As such, it is defined in terms of what you do when you are not doing anything that would normally be considered to be of consequence.
The strengths of this book are seen in its treatment of the themes of prayer, specifically with its references to the Psalms. He sets forth the idea from the Psalms that the Sabbath is meant for both praying and playing. Unfortunately, he seems to do this through some faulty exegesis as he uses a translation of Psalm 92:1 apart from its obvious context to support his own pet theory of "Sabbath play." Verse 3 of the same chapter makes it quite obvious that the "play" described therein is that of musical instruments being used to worship the Lord. Such poor exegesis is sad in any format; it is especially tragic in a book which holds up as one of its three primary pillars the importance of a correct use of the Scriptures. It is perhaps for this reason that, when he deals with the subject of the Scriptures, he seems to get carried away with the tools of vocalized words rather than with the message that they convey.
At the same time, there is a call to prayer of a level that we need to hear and to which we need to respond. The answer isn't to stop doing other things as much as to prioritize prayer.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Mastering the obvious as the straw man taps out. . . , 2005-07-26
In "Working the Angles" Peterson opens with the statement "American Pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. . . they have gone (...) after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn't the remotest connection with what the church's pastors have done for most of twenty centuries" (1)
With this statement, Peterson goes on to explain the reasons behind this abandonment and the ways to rectify the situation. His thesis can be found on page 3 when he states, "Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to"(3).
The rest of the book is an explication of these three pastoral acts in three sections: Prayer, Scripture and Spiritual Direction. These three sections are full of insightful and helpful personal observations from Peterson and do an effective job of describing the type minister that anyone reading this book longs to be. In short, this book describes the ministerial style of Jesus, which is helpful when described but a little more difficult in practice.
Although the content of this book is interesting, it is written against an opponent that doesn't exist and gives answers that are painfully obvious in a way that is antagonistic and alienating. Where are these ministers who completely reject that reading the Bible, Praying and some sort of Christian Accountability (what Peterson calls Spiritual Direction) are necessary? Peterson rails against the whoring throng of ministers who have rejected these basic tenets with righteous indignation, the problem is these people don't exist. The people who do exist are those who have gotten confused and beaten down by the demands of the "job" and have lost their sense of calling and maybe don't pray enough, or read their bible enough or have any accountability. Unlike Peterson, I would not liken these people to those who have "bowed the knee to Baal"(3).
It is undeniable that there is a problem in contemporary Christianity w/ burnout among ministers (although It is false to assume that this is a contemporary phenomenon). When confronted with this objective fact, there are two answers. One is championed with "hot indignation" by Peterson and points to a causal relationship between "doing" and "being," as if these pastors had only been let in on the revelation that reading the bible, praying and friends were good things.
On the other hand, this book would have been great had it presupposed that the situation that some ministers find themselves in was not a conscious choice nor is it a result of some sort of undiagnosed narcissistic complex that drove them to ministry so that they could be seen (for the record, there are many more careers one could choose that are a little more glamorous. . just a few!). This book could have been written with the same pastoral insight and concern that it is hoping to engender in its readers.
If you're a pastor who is feeling out of control and looking for some good insights into life as a minister . . . read this book and skip the intro.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Good basic text for aspirants and pastors, 2005-01-26
Peterson's work gives a simple yet accurate image of three necessary ingredients for developing an aspirant into a pastor. He boils it down to three "angles" of prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction connected by the "lines" of preaching, teaching and administration (5). He rejcts the "gimmicks" that might be offered to short-circuit the process, gimmicks that might polish one's exterior image yet do little to strengthen one's heart, soul, spirit, or relationship with God (7).
His discussion of the angle of prayer is good and solid theologically, yet offers little new information or inspiration. I found this section of the book to be the weakest.
His section regarding Holy Scripture was the one I found to be the best. He makes the interesting and little-expressed point that "reading Scripture is not the same as listening to God" (87). He advocates "contemplative exegesis" to uncover the living story of Scripture through sound and oral tradition rather than printed information. I agree with his insistence that pastors should refrain from distilling Scripture into so many neat packages of morality and lessons, and instead preach and teach the stories with all of their messy, graphic, and even embarassing details. One can visit a museum and see neatly arranged items and artifacts of a country, or one can travel to that country and live, work, and sweat in it, eat its food and speak its language. Again, this section is the strongest.
Regarding spiritual direction, Peterson defines it in somewhat ambiguous terms, which was frustrating to me at first. However, he rightly points out that most such direction occurs in spontaneous and "unplanned but 'just right' moments" (160). Reading this chapter makes me suspect that spiritual direction could be a challenge for those considered to have a "Type A" personality. I strongly agree with Peterson that a pastor needs a spiritual director who will keep him/her balanced and attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
resonates with me, 2005-01-25
Peterson challenges his readers to avoid settling for maintaining merely an image of pastoral work. Using the metaphor of a triangle, he describes the visible lines of pastoral work as preaching, teaching and administration. But the lines of these public activities cannot give any shape to a ministry without the interior angles of prayer, Scripture reading and spiritual direction to hold them together.
Peterson declares, "I don't know of any other profession in which it is quite as easy to fake it as in ours." I'm in seminary now and I am emphatically not hoping for a ministry of "faking it." Working the Angles offers encouragement for the traditional, and traditionally quiet, disciplines of the interior angles. This is a book that I expect will resonate after five, ten and twenty years of pastoral experience.
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