REAL SHEPHERDS

The life, thinking and philosophy of a real shepherd is the desired life of any person, any parent, any teacher, employer, leader, or anyone who ‘wants to make a difference.’ The difference is in the heart of the shepherd. The sheep have the heart of the one who shepherds them. Children have the heart of the parents, students of their teachers, employees of their employer and players of their coaches. It is a principle.

Coaches coach, mentors mentor and shepherds shepherd and fathers father. Our great distortion with this principle working in our society is that we have culturally seen only the ‘pastor’ of a local church as ‘the shepherd’ and not the shepherd principles of John 10 applied to every level of living. The fact is, very few pastors are shepherds in the John 10 sense and most are professional speakers or managers/administrators, cheerleaders or chaplains of maintenance. This is a double-edged problem because the flock ‘hires’ a shepherd who can be nothing but a ‘hireling’ who can then become a ‘fireling’ as well. The flock conversely cannot be a flock because it often has a shepherd who is one in name only, schooling only, seminary only and not in reality. (It is a religious system issue) A shepherd smells like sheep and sheep s— (O.K., dung). If they don’t, they are not living among and leading and caring for the sheep. A pulpit is not a pasture and fancy exegesis is not flock life. A good hermeneutic does not a good shepherd make.

Look for shepherds among families, extended families, teachers, leaders, employers and co-workers and even pray you find some in the local church as well. A shepherd cares for sheep! This is the context. Baaaaa! Baaaaa!

“I am the good shepherd.” Jesus