by Todd Baumgartner

Pastor Dan Baumgartner will be traveling to Minnesota for a week in June to be part of a workshop, “Writing and the Pastoral Life,” with Eugene Peterson. We thought you would want to know more about it, so I asked Dan a few questions:

Tell me what the workshop is, and how you became interested in it…

It’s through the ecumenical Collegeville Institute on the campus of St. John’s College in Minnesota. You know that Eugene Peterson has been a mentor of mine in many ways for a long time. Eugene asked me about attending this a couple of years ago and I was tied up, but this year I had the flexibility. I thought it was just signing up for a continuing education thing, pay your money and go… Turns out it is for a very small group, twelve people, for a week with Eugene, and funded by the Pew Foundation. I had to send in some writing samples… and then wait to hear back. I got in, and leave June 13.

Talk a little about the overlaps between writing and ministry.

…Whether it is sermons, Briefs articles, introductions to baptism or the Lord’s Table, wedding homilies, memorial services, things for the Queen Anne News, World Vision Magazine… I feel like I’m always writing something, on paper or internally. Most of it has to do with “story.”

I’m always amazed at the power of stories. Even in a sermon setting, where I am trying to bring in the scripture and some background of what we are reading, when I start to tell a story, everybody in the room leans forward. We connect to stories because our lives are stories, in a sense. God is in this story with us, and part of our journey of faith is to figure out where He is, and how to cross paths more often.

You’ve mentioned before that you have an idea for a book in your head…

I use “book” in quotation marks. I’m not sure I’m going to pursue trying to have a book published. But it’s helpful for me, even in thinking through ministry to have a vehicle for putting down on paper some of the stories that have been significant along the way, and that’s really what this [book idea] is. But other than my sabbatical, it’s been hard to find extended time to [shape these stories]. This week in Minnesota will provide more pure writing time than I’ve had for a long time, a venue to receive feedback and reflections, and of course, some treasured time with Eugene.

Can you tell us a little about the stories that get your attention?

Most of them are small events, places God has shown up in unexpected ways. Sometimes it is the unfolding of the mundane occurrences of life: a conversation here, an image there, a phrase that sticks in my mind. They always involve people. And since they aren’t big “lightening bolts,” they can easily be missed. Often it’s only after I’ve reflected in a quiet time, or written in a journal that I realize something was significant.

How has the process or discipline of writing had an impact on your spiritual life?

The phrase “paying attention” captures it best for me right now. If I ever write this book, it’s going to be called, “The Slow Way of God” and the subtitle will be “Learning to Pay Attention.” When you experience things, reflect on them, and at some point put them to paper, it hones your sense of keeping your eyes open, watching for the ways and places where God shows up. And as I continue to do it, it’s helping to train me to pay attention, to actually watch with anticipation for God’s presence in my own life, and in the lives of other people.