After the pastor of my church\u00a0resigned, my Sunday school class discussed what the role of a pastor is. I highlighted that the term comes from \u201cshepherd\u201d and that it is (apart from Ephesians\u00a04:11) not used as a title for a Christian leadership position in the New Testament.<\/p>\n
We then turned to the comparison between believers and sheep. Often the focus is on the tendency to lead and to follow. But being a city boy myself, I wondered how much of what we think this imagery means comes from actual familiarity with sheep, and how much is instead a result of starting with what is thought to be the spiritual point of the analogy in the Bible.<\/p>\n
One participant in the class who had actual familiarity with sheep-herding mentioned the tendency of sheep, when scared, to huddle together, leading to the suffocation of some of the sheep.<\/p>\n
If that isn\u2019t a perfect description of what Christian churches sometimes do, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n
And that leads back to a great suggestion for what the role of a pastor should be: someone who gets the church\u00a0to avoid the deadly \u201choly huddle\u201d and instead\u00a0move beyond or in spite of our fears.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m probably going to be preaching at my church sometime in the near future. Perhaps this theme of sheep and shepherds might be a good topic. But I\u2019m also curious (since I expect the sermon can be recorded and I might share it here) what those who read this blog would be interested in hearing me preach on. Your suggestions would be welcome!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the pastor of my church\u00a0resigned, my Sunday school class discussed what the role of a pastor is. I highlighted that the term comes from \u201cshepherd\u201d and that it is (apart from Ephesians\u00a04:11) not used as a title for a Christian leadership position in the New Testament. We then turned to the comparison between believers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":37311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,19],"tags":[8775,11182,11196],"class_list":["post-33420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity-religion","category-ephesians","tag-pastor","tag-sheep","tag-shepherd"],"yoast_head":"\n