Why Pastors Must Be Shepherds

Every pastor is called to have a Shepherd's heart. Pastors are primarily spiritual guides -- not CEO's. Even if a church grows beyond the ability of the pastor's "shepherding ability" (which is about 200 people), the ethos of of the shepherd must still be maintained.

Too many pastors want to be bosses rather than shepherds, but the fact is, 8 out of 10 will never pastor a church over 200. Particularly in the smaller congregation, the pastor is expected to fulfill the pastoral role.

Of course, I believe in visionary leadership, effective outreach strategies and cutting edge ministry programming. These, however, cannot substitute for loving the people. Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and John Maxwell are excellent resources for leadership and outreach. We must go elsewhere, however, to find good models for pastoral care in a smaller faith community (Eugene Peterson is once such model, I think.)

A lot of times, when a pastor says "I'm a rancher", or "I just don't have the gift of mercy" what they really mean is "I don't love my people very much."

There are a couple thousand people on our "responsibility list" now. It's harder for me to know each member of the flock by name. Nevertheless, my deepest desire is that each person feels loved and accepted by us. I have committed myself to pray, by name, for every person in our church family -- even if I have not met them yet. Even if I do not do the "hands-on" shepherding for all of them, I strive to maintain a shepherd's heart.

Beyond 200, a pastor must not switch from "shepherding" to "ranching" (That elicits images of cattle drives, brandings, and the like.) Rather, growth should lead from "shepherding" to "multi-shepherding": we're shepherds together!

My friend, Damien Vraniak, speaks of switching the paradigm from "one serving the many" to "many serving the one." I like that!

Here is a great article on shepherding by H. B. London on this subject. I found it insightful.

An old preacher friend once said, "If you can't stand the smell of sheep, get out of the pasture!"