J. R. Briggs (did you read FAIL yet? you should. go HERE) anyway @jr_briggs interviewed Eugene Peterson about being “The Relationally Grounded Pastor.” It’s about pastoral ministry. Shepherding. Check out these quotes that struck me:
“I’m alarmed that we measure things by what the world counts as important.”
“…if we let people define themselves in terms of problems then they get defined in our minds as problems. We have to fix them, and that’s just death for a pastoral vocation.”
“…let your congregation be the congregation it can be out of who they are.”
Read the interview HERE. I hope you will be challenged and encouraged.
If you have not read Pastor, Peterson’s memoir, you owe it to yourself to make time, maybe this summer, to dwell on this scholar/pastor’s story.
kingdom travelin' 
Did I ever tell you that I used to attend a church service led by J. R. Briggs?