Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness

Eugene Peterson

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994 - Religion - 207 pages

Like Eugene Peterson's other books on pastoring, Under the Unpredictable Plant is full of stimulating insights, candid observations, and biblically grounded prescriptions. Yet this book emanates with a special poignancy out of Peterson's own crisis experience as a pastor.

Peterson tells about the "abyss," the "gaping crevasse," the "chasm" that he experienced, early in his ministry, between his Christian faith and his pastoral vocation. He was astonished and dismayed to find that his personal spirituality, his piety, was inadequate for his vocation -- and he argues that the same is true of pastors in general.

In the book of Jonah -- a parable with a prayer at its center -- Peterson finds a subversive, captivating story that can help pastors recover their "vocational holiness." Using the Jonah story as a narrative structure, Peterson probes the spiritual dimensions of the pastoral calling and seeks to reclaim the ground taken over by those who are trying to enlist pastors in religious careers.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Undercapitalized Vocations: 2
• Vocational Idolatry: 4
• The Jonah Story: 5
• Buying Passage to Tarshish: 9
• Jonah Disobedient: 10
• Escape to Tarshish: 11
• Stay Where You Are: 18
• Ecclesiastical Pornography: 22
• The Travel Agent in Joppa: 25
• Jonah Obedient: 29
• Professionalized Obedience: 30
• The Kind of Pastor We in Fact Are: 31
• Escaping the Storm: 33
• Repudiating Tarshish Religion: 34
• The American Religious Ship: 35
• Throw Me into the Sea: 38
• Recovering a Gospel Vocation: 40
• Songs and Stories and Red Bandannas: 42
• God and Passion: 46
• The Cornfield: 47
• Vocational Holiness: 50
• A Slow Leak: 55
• The Euclidean Threat: 57
• A Karamazov in Every Home: 60
• SeedPlanting Dostoevski: 65
• Jonahs Sea Storni and Pauls Shipwreck: 67
• In the Belly of the Fish: 73
• Conditions: 76
• The Bottom Line: 77
• The Golden Calf: 80
• Hogging the Show: 85
• Askesis: 88
• Holy Saturday: 91
• Monastery without Wails: 97
• Prayer: 99
• The School of the Psalms: 100
• Rule: 105
• The Contemplative Pastor: 111
• Finding the Road to Nineveh: 117
• Geography: 122
• James Joyces Ulysses: 123
• A Days Journey into Nineveh: 128
• Wendell Berry: 131
• The Congregation Is Topsoil: 135
• Spiritual Growth versus Religious Cancer: 138
• Eschatology: 140
• Yet Forty Days: 141
• St Johns Revelation: 144
• Equally Yoked: 148
• Quarreling with God under the Unpredictable Plant: 155
• The Stunted Imagination: 156
• Leonard Storm: 158
• A Hugely Dimensioned Destiny: 160
• The Mess of Creativity: 163
• Bruce: 167
• The Recovered Vocation: 172
• Paradigm Shift: 174
• Messiahs Managers and Spiritual Directors: 178
• Reuben Lance: 182
• Karen: 190
• Making an Ending: 194

Bibliographic information

• Title: Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness; Exploration in Vocational Holi
• Author: Eugene Peterson
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994
• ISBN: 0802808484, 9780802808486
• Length: 207 pages
• Subjects: Religion / Christian Church / Administration; Religion / Christian Living / General; Religion / Christian Ministry / Counseling & Recovery