Pastoral Ministry
When it comes to the ministry of the ‘pastor’, the New
Testament knows one Greek word: poimeen. It is the standard Greek word for a shepherd
– one who tends herds or flocks. I say
‘tends’ because the word means much more than one who feeds the animals. The word
‘tend’ means to look after, to watch over and to care for. In addition, the shepherd feeds the animals;
specifically the shepherd either takes the feed and water to the animals or
takes the animals to the feed and water.
And then the shepherd, obviously, ‘herds’ the animals, which means he
musters them together to form a herd or flock, staying together, travelling
together, feeding together, watering together.
According to the Psalmist, the shepherd locates good
pasture and leads the flock there to rest and to graze. The shepherd locates clean, still water and
leads the flock alongside to drink in peace.
The shepherd oversees the restorative needs of the flock and their need
to travel in safety and certainty. The
true shepherd does this because his name and reputation rest upon their
continued protection. The shepherd may
need to take his flock through tight dark valleys, but he keeps his flock
peacefully and safely through the journey by his rod of discipline and his
staff of correction. The shepherd lays
out fine food for his flock even in the presence of hungry predators. The shepherd grooms his flock and keeps them
well and satisfied so they feel no need to stray. The shepherd keeps the flock in these ways
for and on behalf of the owner of the sheep.
Apostle Paul indicates that the resurrected and ascended
Jesus has allocated some such shepherds (along with apostles, prophets,
teachers and evangelists) for the full outfitting and equipping of the sons of
God so they can effectively carry out their works of service that lead to the
building up of the Body of Christ, the ecclesia. The goal of this outfitting, equipping and
building up is to take us all on to unity in the faith and unity in the
knowledge of the Son of God; to become a ‘mature man’, no longer a child; to
deliver us to a stature that measures up to the fullness of Christ.
Apostle Peter – as an elder himself – exhorts the elders
amongst the Jewish believers he is writing to to “shepherd the flock”. Peter is saying, ‘herd the herd’, ‘sheep-herd
the sheep’. The same root word is used
twice, once as a verb and once as a noun.
He is picking up on the metaphor of the sheep and the shepherd as a
model for the elders of ecclesia to care for God’s people on the road to the
Christ-likeness Paul was talking about.
Peter’s exhortation continues: “Shepherd the flock of God
among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion but voluntarily, according
to God; and not for sordid gain but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over
those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will
receive the unfading crown of glory.” (1 Peter 5:1-4)
One Ferrell Jenkins has a travel blog on
wordpress.com. My thanks to him for this
wonderful little photograph of a shepherd in Nazareth village.
In times past, and in many less urbanized countries even
today, sheep and cattle keeping constitute the daily life of many. This work, away from city life, and far
removed from the care and stresses of the large metropolis, is what in English
is referred to as ‘pastoral’ work. It is
for this reason mainly that the Greek word poimeen
has come to be translated into English using the word ‘pastor’. However, also in times past, this role of
pastor and this work of pastoring came to be almost the sum of the duty of care
that church leaders have for the flock allotted to their charge. The pastor became – and still is to this day
– the central figure and the CEO of congregations of God’s people.
I believe this came about primarily because most
congregations became acceptable and comfortable and the mandate of Jesus to
“disciple the nations” was largely abandoned.
As a result, there is basically no need for apostles, prophets and
evangelists; and pastors can easily become ‘pastors and teachers’ – or
pastor/teachers. Indeed, to this very
day, most congregations have considerable trouble relating to or connecting
with their local communities, whether rural, suburban or urban.
This trend is further complicated by the comfort and
protection offered to churches that are registered organizations, recognised by
governments, whose primary emphasis is maintenance rather than mission and
status-quo rather than game-changer.
This itself reduces the need for four of the five ministry functions of
Ephesians 4 and turns the role of pastor into a combination of officiating at
births, marriages and deaths and “keeping the rabble in line”. Many pastors seriously struggle if and when
they attempt to reclaim pastoring as what it is supposed to be, and to
reintroduce and reintegrate apostles, prophets, teachers and evangelists into
local congregations. I know because I
was one such person, trying to be a pastor.
In effect, the pastor has become the king, and his
kingdom is as small or as large as he chooses or as he is capable of. The Peter Principle, in simple terms, is
commonly phrased: “employees
tend to rise to their level of incompetence.”
When pastors are put in charge and remain in charge, those congregations
will expand to the limit of the pastors’ ability to effectively be in charge. And given that, generally speaking, power
corrupts, those congregations with those pastors ‘in charge’ will generally
have an expiry date. Of course there are
exceptions, but they are few and far between.
The HOW NOT TO of Pastoral
Ministry
I believe the principal reason for this state of affairs is outlined
for us by Old Testament prophet Ezekiel in his prophecy chapter 34, so I would
like us to learn how not to do
pastoral ministry from this man of God.
This is a prophecy “against the shepherds of Israel”. I do not propose pasting here the full text
of Ezekiel 34 – I must leave you to read it for yourself. What I propose here is to draw together a
kind of list of DON’Ts for aspiring
shepherds by pointing to the things they did that God was not at all happy with
– and which the prophet, similarly, took issue with.
They have been feeding themselves instead of feeding the flock. They slaughter the fat sheep, eat the fat,
clothe themselves with the wool but fail to feed the flock.
They have not strengthened the sickly ones, nor healed the sick
ones. Neither have they splinted the
flock’s broken joints, nor sought and found the lost and brought them
back. Instead, with force and severity,
they dominated them.
The flock was scattered for lack of shepherding and became food for
wild animals with no-one to search for them.
Therefore God declares, “Behold, I am
against the shepherds and I shall demand my sheep from them and make them cease
from feeding sheep. So the shepherds
will not feed themselves anymore, but I shall deliver my flock from their mouth
that they may not be food for them.”
If I could, I would have Ezekiel 34:11-16 printed with opals on a
scroll of pure gold and hung in every cathedral in the world. Pastors and priests the world over keep
berating ‘sheep’ for turning their backs on them, but they fail to realise they
are the very shepherds Ezekiel was talking about. Listen to what God says He is going to do:
“I myself will search for my sheep and seek
them out. As a shepherd cares for his
herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for my
sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on
a cloudy and gloomy day. And I will
bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring
them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the
streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in good pasture, and their
grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down in good grazing
ground and they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock and I will lead them to
rest. I will seek the lost, bring back
the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the
strong I will destroy.”
Pastors, if the flock is scattering and drifting off to God knows
where, your efforts should be focused on what you are doing wrong, not on what
the sheep might be doing that you
disagree with. And you need not worry
about them, because God has them in his sight and in his care. Equally, you are in His sights. The one you should be worried about is
yourself: God has promised – promised! – that He is against you and that He
will demand His sheep from you and you will be stripped of your job as a
shepherd. As a result, you will no
longer be able to feed yourself; your food, the sheep, will be taken from you.
But His judgment is not done yet.
They feed themselves in the good pasture, but in the process, they
tread down the rest of the pasture with their feet leaving the sheep to eat the
trodden down pasture.
Likewise with the water: they drink the cool, clear water, but in the
process, foul the rest of the water with their feet leaving the sheep to drink
foul water.
They push and shove with side and shoulder and butt the weak sheep with
their horns until they leave, tired, thirsty, hungry and bedraggled, to go off
to God knows where.
So God declares:
“I will deliver my flock and they will no
longer be a prey… And I will set over
them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will feed them. He will feed them himself and be their
shepherd. And I the Lord will be their
God and my servant David will be prince among them.” [I believe David here is a type of Christ
who is The Good Shepherd]
“I will make a covenant of peace with them
and eliminate harmful beasts from the land, so that they may live securely in
the wilderness and sleep in the woods.
And I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing…”
“Then they will know that I am the Lord,
when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand
of those who enslaved them. And they
will no longer be a prey to the nations and the beasts of the earth will not
devour them but they will live securely and no one will make them afraid. And I will establish for them a renowned
planting place and they will not again be victims of famine in the land and
they will not endure the insults of the nations any more. Then they will know that I, the Lord their
God, am with them and that they are my people.”
“And as for you, my sheep – the sheep of my
pasture – you are men, and I am your God, declares the Lord.”
Pastors, you may be inclined to judge some sheep for wandering off into
the wilderness, but note that this is probably God drawing them away from you,
since He has prepared things so they can live securely in the wilderness and
sleep soundly outside in the woods. You
are not there to have the best for yourself and starve the sheep; you are not
there to sacrifice the sheep and devour them; you are not there to push and
shove and butt the sheep to your way of thinking, caring nothing when they
leave tired, hungry and thirsty. If this
is you, you are what Jesus called a ‘hireling’, a faux-shepherd, a wolf in sheep’s clothing who will run away and
abandon the sheep if threatened.
I am sure much more could be said.
But probably the most important thing that can be said at this point is
that, in the new covenant, there is always grace to repent. More than anything else, what pastors need to
learn is that they are not in charge. If
you are “in charge” you are most likely a hireling.
First, Jesus is in charge. He is
the Chief Shepherd and the flock belongs to his Father and ours. He is the Head of the body, we are the body;
it is not the other way around as many outsiders might surmise when they look
at us. He is the Groom, we are the
bride. He is the sun, we are the moon.
Second, when Jesus is in charge, pastors are no more than one in five
of the elders in the congregations of God, and pastors are meant to take their
cues from apostles and prophets. As it
is, pastors expect all apostles, prophets, teachers and evangelists to take
their cues from them. But hang on! Aren’t we talking about two different things
here? There are those who are named
‘pastor’ and who hold a position of power, many of whom are not pastor by
Spirit-gift or Spirit-call. Then there
are those who are called and gifted as pastoral elders, many of whom are left
to rust in the machine shed.
Real pastoral ministry in ecclesia (as against church pastors) is as we
see in the writings of Peter and Paul above.
It is also as we see from Ezekiel – DO NOT BE AS THE SHEPHERDS OF ISRAEL, but rather shepherd God’s people as God shepherds His own. After all, all ecclesia pastors are
under-shepherds to Jesus the Chief Shepherd and together they shepherd the
flock of God, according to God. What did
Peter say?
“Shepherd
the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion but
voluntarily, according to God; and not for sordid gain but with eagerness; nor
yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be
examples. And when the Chief Shepherd
appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
