shepherd – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Shepherd and sheep (Wikimedia)

Continuing the flow of church life and growth, where evangelists have been at work there will be a gathering of people following Jesus to the best of their ability; some will be absolute beginners. There are bound to be some difficulties and rough edges: some may come off track, stop coming to meetings and drift away. There may be disagreements, even angry arguments. There will certainly be differences of opinion and misunderstandings; friction and differing perspectives. And there may be some who will say, ‘Don’t go that way, come this way, it’s a much easier path.’

Where there is someone with a strong shepherding gift, all of these issues will be addressed, usually in straightforward, kind and helpful ways. People will be encouraged to understand alternative points of view even though they may strongly disagree. Those who wander away will be visited, given an opportunity to explain difficulties, ask questions and be encouraged even if they decide not to return. The need to accept one another as beloved brothers and sisters will start to seem more important than having this or that position accepted. The body will work together better, there will be less confrontation and more building going on.

Although Paul’s greatest gifting may have been apostolic and he was strong also in the prophetic, you can see the shepherd in him as he shows concern for the Corinthians who were losing their way. And I can imagine James, speaking about the widows and orphans saying, ‘Hey, these people need your help and love too. You’re watching them suffer and doing nothing to show them you care about them.’ Shepherds are always alert and ready to intervene when there’s a need.

We’re at a strong disadvantage here in Britain, our agricultural history has shepherds but no tradition of leading sheep. Instead our custom is to round them up and drive them in the way we want them to go. We use sheepdogs to help us frighten the sheep into submission. Take a look at the photo in this article, the shepherd is in front and the sheep are following, that would not happen in the UK, or in France, the USA, Australia or New Zealand. The photo is from Poland where some shepherds work like the traditional pastoralists in Israel and Arab nations. When Paul writes about the gift of a shepherd he’s not thinking about rounding up or driving a herd of anxious and scared sheep with the help of a descendent of the wolf family! There may be difficult moments where someone with a shepherd gift has to act very firmly to protect someone else from continuing unkind, selfish or unthinking behaviour, but hopefully these will be rare exceptions.

Why follow?

So why do sheep follow a shepherd? It’s because the shepherd knows what the sheep need, and the sheep know that the shepherd knows what they need. What do sheep need? They need grass to eat, water to drink, and safety from predators. Sheep are far from stupid, they soon learn that the shepherd will take them to green pastures, streams of living (ie flowing) water, and if a predator comes close the shepherd will drive it away.

And that, my friends, pretty much describes the gift of Shepherd in the life of the church. If you are a gift of Shepherd in the church nobody will be afraid of you. They will know from experience that your habit is to lead them to places where they will be able to thrive and grow in peace and safety. Places where they will be fed truth and have access to the living water, and that every kind of predator will either be won over or chased off.

Do you have this gift?

Yes, as with apostle, prophet and evangelist, we all have this gift to some degree. You cannot be like Jesus without having some level of shepherd about you. Jesus is the origin and source of all the gifts we’re discussing in this series. If you believe him and follow him then Christ is in you. And if the perfect Shepherd is in you then you are going to reflect that at some level.

Psalm 23

This famous Psalm sums it up really well. If you have a well-developed and deep gift of shepherd you will be a living example of Psalm 23 in action. The psalm describes how you will make the people around you feel.

How the gift of shepherd has been misunderstood

In the 20th and 21st centuries the word ‘pastor’ has been used (or misused) to identify people who may (or may not) have a shepherding gift. Often it is used to mean something like a manager or director – as if church is a sort of business enterprise. A Pastor in this sense is heavily loaded with many duties. He is the person where the buck stops – financially and managerially. He (for it’s usually a man) is expected to fix every problem, and solve every issue. The Pastor may have a team under him, often described as elders, people he can delegate to, call on for help when needed, and share the responsibilities with. Neither the pastor nor the elders will necessarily be shepherds in the sense I’ve outlined in this article. Some of them might be, but much of their time and effort is likely to be spent on management tasks.

Meanwhile any true shepherds in the congregation may not be identified, and might struggle to fulfil the role Jesus has bestowed on them. It’s a double-bind, in which shepherds and those who need the care of a shepherd are both frustrated.

Check the Daily Meditations link below to see some of the thoughts of a shepherd’s heart. Next time, we’ll take a look at the gift of teacher, that will round off APEST for us:

Apostle
Prophet
Evangelist
Shepherd
Teacher

After thinking about the teaching gift, we’ll take a look at how all five APEST gifts can be seen in the nature and teaching of Jesus himself.

You might also like:

Bad Shepherds

JDMC study guide

Gifts for building-1

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FaithOrKnowledge

What do you think of when you read the words ‘bad shepherds’? Perhaps you imagine a man with a crook lying asleep in the shade while the sheep wander off. Or you might think of a man with a dog, hitting the sheep with a long stick to make them go in the right direction.

Bad shepherds are mentioned in Jeremiah 50 beginning at verse 6. Yahweh, the mighty Lord of Israel is speaking to the prophet Jeremiah and he says,

My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place. Whoever found them devoured them; their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against Yahweh, their verdant pasture, Yahweh, the hope of their ancestors’.

Shepherd (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The people had been in captivity in Babylon when Jeremiah heard this message, and out of that terrible situation they would cry tearfully to Yahweh; and these verses were part of his response. Israel had begun very much in Yahweh’s presence, they were his chosen people. But they had done so much wrong that he had expelled them from the land and sent them into captivity. When Paul wrote in Colossians 1:27, ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (and it’s a plural ‘you’), he was repurposing a Jewish prayer. The Jews of his day were praying for the Shekinah glory of the Presence of Yahweh to return to the Holy place in the Jerusalem Temple. This was ‘the hope of glory’ that Paul refers to. But the glory would no longer rest in the Holy place in the Temple, from now on it would rest in the ekklesia, the church.

The church began really well and will end well, she is the wife, the Bride of the Lamb (Revelation 21:1-4). She is chosen, not just as individuals but as a body, all of us together. Do you think the church has also been sent into captivity? What is our ‘Babylon’? Just think, what began as a joyful, exuberant, free, living expression of new life in Christ has so often become solemn, restrained, enslaved to ritual and tradition and seemingly dry and dead. We have become fractured into many denominations so are no longer ‘one body’.

The solution for the church today is the same as the solution for Israel in Jeremiah’s day. We must ‘go in tears to seek’ Jesus our Lord and King (Jeremiah 50:4). We must ask the way back and turn our faces towards it; we must come and renew the bond we have to him and not forget (verse 5).

We have been lost sheep, our shepherds have led us astray, our shepherds caused us to roam on the mountains, to wander, to forget our own resting place (verse 6). It’s time to turn back to Jesus alone, to follow him, to hear his voice and do his bidding. There is a reason that he said, ‘I am the good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I know my sheep and my sheep know me’ (John 10:11, 14).

But please don’t hear what I am not saying. I am not saying there is no place in church for leaders, just that there is no place for bad shepherds. And I’m not saying that that we should fill in the structural cracks of denominationalism in our own strength, instead we should all make sure we’re connected with the Head so that through him we will all be part of one network. He has a plan for the church that will work, I don’t and neither do you. He said, ‘I will build my church’; and he will!

Tag: shepherd

Leading the sheep