"We are not machines; we are living things. And the church is not a factory; it is a garden."

What are the images that shape your ministry? For many leaders, the dominant metaphors are often corporate or industrial—efficiency, scale, and production. But as the cultural landscape shifts, many pastors are finding these images are no longer sufficient for the soul-work of the local church.

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Matt Erickson, Senior Pastor of Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Matt brings a unique blend of urban pastoral experience and a deep commitment to the Christian imagination. A graduate of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination, Matt has spent years thinking through how the metaphors we use dictate the health of our leadership.

We discuss his new book, The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry (releasing at the end of March). Matt shares why he believes the image of the gardener offers a more resilient, organic, and faithful way to lead in a complex world.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why the "CEO" or "Manager" metaphors are failing the modern pastor.
• The patient, rhythmic work of "tending the soil" in an urban, multiracial context.
• How the Eugene Peterson Center influenced his vision for pastoral ministry.
• Practical ways to shift your leadership from a mindset of production to one of cultivation.

About Matt Erickson

Matt Erickson has served as the Senior Pastor at Eastbrook Church since 2011. He holds a Doctor of Ministry from Western Theological Seminary. Matt and his wife, Kelly, live in Milwaukee and are the parents of three adult children.

Every year at this time, I go back through my Amazon orders, my Audible subscription, and my bookshelf to reflect on everything I’ve read. It is a fantastic exercise to see what has occupied your mind over the past twelve months. Reviewing also helps me form a loose plan for what I want to dive into in the coming year—focusing more on the topics I’d like to explore further.

This review always helps me curate a list of my favorite reads. I’ll keep the intro short and jump straight into the books with a brief description and a few thoughts on each.

Biography

Each year, I try to tackle one long biography. My previous lists have often included works by the poet T.S. Eliot; I keep his Four Quartets on my nightstand. This year, a friend gifted me a two-part biography of Eliot’s life. Since there are no rules for reading, I started with the second volume, which chronicles Eliot’s later life and conversion.

• Eliot After The Waste Land by Robert Crawford Crawford explores T.S. Eliot’s life and work from the publication of The Waste Land onward. Rather than treating Eliot as a figure frozen in modernist despair (the primary theme of his earliest and most well-known work), Crawford shows a poet continually changing—emotionally, spiritually, and artistically. The book traces Eliot’s conversion to Anglican Christianity, his evolving views on culture and society, and the development of later works such as Ash-Wednesday and Four Quartets. Crawford presents Eliot as a disciplined craftsman seeking order, tradition, and meaning after personal breakdown and cultural fragmentation.
• Host Note: It’s a long read, but one of my suggestions for reading is to find a writer you like and read absolutely everything they’ve written—and everything written about them. I’ve been on an Eliot binge for a few years now.

Study on the Theology of the Body

In 2025, I’ve been working on a new book project that I hope to share more about in early 2026. As part of my research, I have been reading extensively about health, fitness, and a theology of the human body. For such a universal topic, it is surprising how rarely Christians think about it deeply. There is often a subtle "Gnosticism" that imagines the spirit as sacred while the body is just physical material to be replaced by something better. That isn’t actually what Christianity teaches. While I’ve read many books on this topic this year, these four were particularly helpful:

• The Theology of the Body by Jean-Claude Larchet Larchet presents a distinctly Orthodox account of the human body grounded in patristic theology. He argues that the body is not a temporary shell for the soul but an essential, God-given dimension of the human person. Drawing on Scripture and the Greek Fathers, he explores creation, the fall, illness, ascetic practice, and resurrection.
• Host Note: It is a very small book, but Larchet makes a concise case for why Christianity should value the physical body more than any other religion.
• The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology by J. A. T. Robinson This is the most academic book on the list—a monograph from the 1950s. Robinson examines the Apostle Paul’s understanding of the body against common misconceptions of Christian dualism. He argues that Paul does not oppose body and soul but views the human person as an integrated whole. The book traces how sin, redemption, and resurrection are worked out in and through the body.
• Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey Pearcey critiques modern cultural views that separate the "self" from the body. She argues that contemporary debates over sexuality, gender, and bioethics are rooted in a dualistic worldview that treats the body as disposable. As she does so well, Pearcey contrasts this with a Christian

Doug Basler is married to his wife, Katie, and is the father of Addie, Jackson, and Isaac. He currently serves as pastor of Union Park Presbyterian Church in Des Moines and First Presbyterian Church of Grimes. His pastoral ministry has also taken him to congregations in Aberdeen, Washington, and Cooke City, Montana.

Doug recently completed a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at Western Theological Seminary and holds degrees from Westmont College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of All Swirling and Weaving: Reflections on Reading Fiction and Growing in Faith, a work that explores how attentive engagement with literature can shape Christian imagination and spiritual formation.

A lifelong sports fan, Doug roots enthusiastically for the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Bears, and the Iowa Hawkeyes.