Shepherds aren't supposed to lead sheep 'on mission'
Corporate leadership practices in the church are nothing like the Good Shepherd's care for his flock
Hello, all! It’s been a while since I posted. We had a busy summer of travel, and now are settling into school routines. With some new responsibilities this fall (homeschool, teaching a Bible study, and a new puppy) I’m going to plan for an every-other-week posting schedule for now. Thank you so much for reading!
There always had to be a vision statement.
The church had one, and every ministry was expected to develop its own. We were LEADERS, after all. We needed to get church members on board with our goals.
Leadership and growth were emphasized constantly in our former church: words like “multiplication” and “missional” conveyed the importance of our efforts in the church-planting network.
For many years, I was caught up in the hype. Church planting seemed exciting, a bold endeavor similar to what the apostles had done.1 Church members needed a leader to show us where to go and how to get there. And that, we knew, was what a pastor is for.
Today, two years out of that church — which I now know was very unhealthy — I have a different perspective.
As I’ve started to reexamine my assumptions around church and “pastoring,” comparing them to what the Bible portrays, I see how our current model has more in common with consumer culture, military concepts, and corporate leadership models than Jesus.
When churches call themselves “families” but function like businesses, pastors act more like CEOs than shepherds to God’s flock. This is not a minor issue of technique.
When pastoring is approached as “leadership,” it changes the fundamental goal of the work.
Does a shepherd “lead” sheep, or follow them?
The leaders of God’s people have always been compared to shepherds, throughout the Old and New Testaments. So is God himself: “we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” (Psalm 95:7) Of course, the title “pastor” comes from the Latin word for shepherd. I knew this, and yet for years I never stopped to consider whether a pastor’s role aligned with what a shepherd actually did.
I assumed it was the same thing. Shepherds lead the flock; pastors cast vision and lead the mission. Same activity, different contexts.
But then one verse in Amos made me rethink everything. In chapter 7, Amos defends his ministry by explaining how God called him out of his former career as a shepherd:
So Amos answered Amaziah, “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” (Amos 7:14-15)
Wait: “following the flock”?
Nowhere had I heard shepherding described this way. Don’t shepherds “lead”? Even Psalm 23 uses this language: “he leads me beside still waters.”
I struggled to resolve the tension between “lead” and “follow.” How could a shepherd be described as doing both?
Then I realized — the difference isn’t one of position, but of purpose. If a shepherd’s goal is the well-being of the sheep, where he walks in relation to them isn’t that important. Sometimes, the shepherd will walk ahead, guiding them towards green pastures and still waters. But once they’re in a safe location, the shepherd can follow the flock, letting them graze and rest as needed.2 After all, his job is to make sure they’re safe and healthy, and as long as conditions are suitable for this, he doesn’t need to “lead” them anywhere else.
In other words — the shepherd isn’t taking the sheep “on mission.” A real shepherd isn’t “leading” the flock where he wants to go; he guides them to where their needs will be met.
The goal is always the well-being of the sheep, not to mobilize the sheep to carry out the shepherd’s plans.
Perhaps this seems like a minor distinction. Aren’t all churches and pastors aiming at the same goal? Even if they have different styles or staff structures, you might point out, every church is about spreading the gospel, worshiping the Lord, reaching the lost, etc. Why would it matter if the pastor approaches his work as “leadership” as long as the gospel is being preached?
I believe it makes all the difference. A pastor focused on “leading” a congregation is more likely to neglect their care, or even abuse them, because he’ll be tempted to see them as objects to use rather than souls to tend.
A shepherd seeks the lost one; a leader stays with the 99
Here’s a few examples of how the different approaches could play out. For the sake of clarity, pastoral care means an approach to shepherding that’s primarily focused on the health and safety of the flock. Pastoral leadership can include concern for the health of the flock, but it also involves “motivating a group of people towards a common goal,” to paraphrase several definitions.
A difference in goals
Pastoral leadership: The main goal is outside the current congregation: church planting, evangelizing the lost, creating programs to serve neighbors, growing the church and fundraising for a new building. Adding sheep to the flock seems like a greater priority than caring for those already inside.
Pastoral care: The main goal is to feed and water the flock who are in the church right now (Bible teaching and building up their relationship with the Lord), while keeping them safe and healthy (promoting good relationships with one another and with neighbors, giving counsel and caring for those who are hurt).
A difference in focus
Pastoral leadership: Will focus on the most useful members of the flock. The strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, etc. will be called on to help achieve goals. The weak, sick, disabled, elderly are often left behind because they can’t do much to advance the mission. Will leave the 1 lost sheep behind because it’s not worth his time — getting the 99 to their destination is more profitable.
Pastoral care: Will focus on members in need of care, especially the injured or sick (in both the spiritual and physical sense). Will keep an eye on the weak and marginalized, making sure they don’t get lost. Will leave the 99 to find the 1 lost sheep, because his concern is their welfare, not how they can serve his agenda.
These are broad definitions, of course; it may not be easy for a churchgoer to discern what type of pastoring happens in their congregation. But overall, “pastoral leadership” will be focused on outcomes and products, with measurable goals and success according to human standards.
Leadership culture also tends to use war metaphors when talking about church life: we are “on mission,” there’s discussion of “the kingdom” and how much courage we need, especially from our leaders. For example, I once spoke at a conference called “Advance the Church;” the network we were part of had “boot camps” for new pastors and spoke of church planting as “God’s mission strategy.”
And yes — I know there are war metaphors in the New Testament, but when combat becomes the primary way the pastor or church envisions their purpose, this drastically changes the quality and safety of relationships. Instead of leading the flock to green pastures and making them lie down, the pastor will be tempted to do the equivalent of whipping the sheep so they run faster, whether into “battle” or to build the next big project.
The Lord leads us into green pastures, not onto battlefields, because this is how a Shepherd cares for sheep. Jesus saw the crowds that followed him not as a potential army but as a flock in need of care: “they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36)
When war metaphors and leadership culture mix in the church, it leads to stress, anxiety, fear, burnout — for both pastor and congregation. The pastor will be constantly looking for the next achievement to conquer, the next milestone to hit, and the congregation will wear themselves out working towards the goal.
There have been “shepherds” like this ever since the Old Testament. In Ezekiel 34, the Lord warns the leaders of Israel who took advantage of the strong while neglecting the weak, much like the corporate leadership techniques of today:
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally…”
It can be discouraging to see the damage done by so many false shepherds today. But the Lord gives us hope. Following his warning to the false shepherds in Ezekiel 34, the Good Shepherd promises to rescue the sheep and lead them — not on a mission or into battle, but to places of refreshment and rest. The Lord’s vision for his sheep is not to build something for him, but to receive good things from him.
“I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness … I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
We were encouraged to see Paul and other New Testament figures as church planters. I now think the “church planting” movement has very little in common with the early church as recorded in Acts and the NT epistles — and hope to write more about this later!
Philip Keller was both a pastor and a shepherd. His book “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23” draws on his experience, giving greater context to the psalm by explaining what a shepherd’s job is really like.
Excellent, Joy.
I’ve heard so many guys in lead pastor positions argue the “I am a pastor whose gift is teaching/evangelism” thing. It’s so easily co-opted. Or “I’m an apostolic pastor like Paul”…sigh. A lot of built in gymnastics to justify the ambition for power and success over shepherding presence. I wrestled with a lot of the same here https://open.substack.com/pub/ryanramsey/p/lead-pastor-or-lead-outsourcer?r=aaq7m&utm_medium=ios
This is well said. One minor nitpick: a shepherd generally does not feed the sheep directly, but brings them to where they may feed themselves. A good pastor is more concerned with getting the flock into the Word for themselves than trying to exhaustively teach every doctrine he can extract from a few verses.