Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness

In preparation for our series “Deadliest Catch” on the book of Jonah, I read Under the Unpredictable Plant. The book also looks at the spiritual side of being a pastor. Your first thought might be, isn’t it all spiritual. The reality is that most books on being a pastor have very little to do with God, which is incredibly sad. Thankfully, there are writers like Eugene Peterson who talk about the spiritual side of it, what does it mean to have a spiritual journey as a leader and to take others on their journey.

What was interesting about this book was that he took the story of Jonah and worked through it from the perspective of being a pastor. Fascinating. I had never thought of the story this way, but it made so much sense.

Here are some thoughts:

• We want gods that are not gods so we can “be as gods.”
• Somehow we American pastors, without really noticing what was happening, got our vocations redefined in the terms of American careerism. We quit thinking of the parish as a location for pastoral spirituality and started thinking of it as an opportunity for advancement.
• We do not have to acquiesce in the trivialization of our work, our call to be pastors in the church of Christ. As it is, there is far too much acquiescence, too much caving in to the culture. A staggeringly high percentage of pastors actually collaborates with the enemy, the world that wants a religion that is mostly entertainment with occasional breaks for moral commercials.
• I didn’t want to keep people from dying; I wanted to show them how to live.
• What does it mean to represent the Kingdom of God in a culture devoted to the Kingdom of Self? How do delicate, vulnerable, fragile words survive in competition with money and guns and bulldozers? How do pastors, who don’t make anything happen, maintain a robust identity in a society that pays its top dollars to country singers, drug lords, oil barons?
• Pastoring is not managing a religious business but a spiritual quest.

This book hit me square between the eyes on vacation. It was a great book, really showed me some things I need to work on as a pastor and confirmed some things I am already changing in my leadership and how I view people. It is also confirmed my need to be a spiritual director as well as have someone on my journey with me.