Holy Presence
Holy Presence | Doctor of Ministry
While pastors face constant pressure to reduce our callings and become “shopkeepers” leading religious enterprises for religious consumers, the Spirit beckons us to reclaim our vocation, to return to the vows we’ve made to be faithful to God, to the church, and to this noble work. We need to encounter God once more. And we need conversation partners who will help us renew our pastoral imagination so we can see and hear and have courage to serve God’s people with fidelity, compassion, and integrity.
Attentive pastors are intimately familiar with the many seductions which lure us from our calling and tempt us away from humble presence, attentive prayer, and the cure of souls. We’re asked to be experts in management, leadership, preaching, administration, fundraising, corporate vision (the list goes on), but there’s little help or incentive encouraging pastors’ slow, lifelong commitment to deep pastoral formation. And our institutions offer few resources or spaces for likeminded pastor to pursue substantive, sustained study and conversation in the context of spiritual friendship. Our current predicament reveals idolatries and temptations—and potent possibilities—which make Eugene’s pastoral theology as needed and hopeful as when he first began his work.
Eugene believed the pastoral life must be lived and experienced in the context of relationships. If one’s theology could not be lived with another, then it was not a theology grounded in the gospel of the Triune God. Eugene’s writings offer pastors the gift of a mentor who takes us and our vocational calling seriously. And Eugene’s witness unfolds how pastors can become more rooted in the Scriptural story, integrating theological reflection, friendship, and serious attention to the heart and the soul.
The Holy Presence Cohort welcomes women and men who are committed to pursuing and strengthening their calling as contemplative pastors in the company of like-minded pilgrims.
Applications are now open. You may apply here using the “general application” button.
Each year will revolve around two annual residencies: May and January. We will have multiple mentors and lecturers, working from different contexts and with distinct voices, to help us integrate the pastoral vision in our own unique settings. Below is a representative flow to provide a general ethos, but details are subject to reworking and adaptation.
Year One: In addition to determining student projects, the first year of our cohort will begin our immersion into Peterson’s pastoral writings, plumbing central themes of Eugene’s pastoral theology. We will begin with two of his foundational works yielding his pastoral convictions: The Contemplative Pastor and Working the Angles as well as an entrée into Peterson’s Spiritual Theology, invitations to live a thoroughly integrated life of faith (Christ Plays in 10,000 places, The Jesus Way, Tell it Slant, Practice Resurrection and Eat this Book). We will also read A Burning in My Bones, the biography of Eugene as well as Mandy Smith’s The Vulnerable Pastor.
Year Two: The second year will continue to explore Eugene’s pastoral theology, centered on Five Smooth Stones, Under the Unpredictable Plant, and The Unnecessary Pastor. We will venture further into the posture of indwelling scripture for pastoral practice, reading selections from several works integrating Eugene’s Scriptural imagination: Reversed Thunder (Revelation), Answering God (Psalms), Leap Over a Wall (the Life of David), and Traveling Light (Galatians). We will also read The Pastor: A Memoir. Secondly, we will read several voices who will play as conversations partners as we seek to expand and reanimate the pastoral imagination into various contexts: Ellen Davis’ Opening Israel’s Scriptures and Samuel D. Proctor and Gardner C. Taylor’s We Have This Ministry, Thabite Anyabwile’s The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three African American Pastors.
Year three: Reading for this third year will engage Eugene and Eric’s book Letters to a Young Pastor as well as selected works from Take and Read – shaping our reading around Peterson’s own expansive reading (novels, poems, essays, histories, lives of the saints, etc.) as we explore Eugene’s cohesive, seamless experience of life and beauty with his Biblical and pastoral imagination. We will also read Claude Atcho’s Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just. The deeper focus of this final year, however, will be helping each cohort member to refine their project, interacting with Peterson’s pastoral theology and imagination for their own particular context.
Ongoing: Depending on the flow, we may have an occasional whole-cohort meeting via Zoom between residencies. Also, faculty will host Zoom gatherings with their smaller research and writing circle.
Residency Dates (Tentative)
May 3-7, 2027 – Holland, MI
January 10-14, 2028 – Holland, MI
May 8-12, 2028 – Flathead Lake, MT
January 8-12, 2029 – Holland, MI
May 2029 – Isle of Iona, Scotland & London (subject to change)
January 14-18, 2030 – Holland, MI
Winn Collier
Lead FacultY
A pastor for 28 years and the founding pastor of All Souls (Charlottesville, VA), Winn is the director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Christian Imagination at WTS. Winn is the author of Restless Faith: Hanging on to God Just Out of Reach; Let God: Spiritual Conversations with François Fénelon; Holy Curiosity: Encountering Jesus’ Provocative Questions; Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small Town Church; A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, and the forthcoming Thou Art Lightening and Love.
Mandy Smith
FACULTY
Pastor of St. Lucia Uniting Church in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia), Mandy embodies a unique intersection of pastor/writer/artist and brings fresh hope to the pursuit of a faithful pastoral imagination. Mandy is the author of The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture, and Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance of God.
Ellen Davis
Guest Lecturer
Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School, Ellen serves the church with her mind, heart, scholarship, and writing (numerous articles and twelve books, including Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible; Preaching the Luminous Word; Opening Israel’s Scriptures; Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, and Light Within Light: Psalms and the Arts of Insight.
Trygve Johnson
Guest Lecturer
Executive Director of the PreachFor Foundation and for the previous 19 years the Hinga Boersma Dean of the Chapel at Hope College, Trygve has sought to work a pastoral imagination into the soil of a university context. Trygve is the author of The Preacher as Liturgical Artist: Metaphor, Identity, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ and a contributor to Theology and Tolkien and other volumes.
Claude Atcho
Guest Lecturer
Founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Charlottesville, Virginia, Claude has written for Christianity Today, Think Christian, Christ and Pop Culture, and Living Church and authored Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just and Rhythms of Faith: A Devotional Pilgrimage Through the Church Year.
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