My wife called me Monday afternoon with the expected, but untimely news that my mentor and friend Eugene Peterson had passed away. “I’m sorry,” she said with a soft and warm tone, her voice trailing off into silence. I was preparing for this moment for the past few years – even more so the past week, as he was put on hospice – but the tears still flowed. Some out of sadness, most out of gratitude for his life. His son, Eric, wrote that for someone who practiced Sabbath, which he kept on Mondays, it’s only fitting Eugene experienced true rest for the first time on that particular day of the week.

Several years ago, when I graduated from Biblical Seminary, I was equipped with valuable theological, missiological and philosophical truth about God and His Mission. I learned what it meant to join God and His mission in the world by being incarnational. But looking back, I realized I had missed something: I didn’t really know how to do that specifically and practically in my day-to-day role as a pastor. I lacked the practical training for how to put into practice what I had learned.