TABLE OF CONTENTS An Introduction to Different Kinds of Shepherding......................5 Collective Shepherding by Elders.................................... 17 Shepherding by Overseers..........................................29 Individual Shepherding: Pastoral Counseling.......................... 43 Member-to-Member Shepherding................................... 57 Shepherding Issues................................................ 71 Don t Scatter the Sheep............................................ 83 The Equipping Ministry............................................99 3
CHAPTER ONE AN INTRODUCTION TO DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHEPHERDING The shepherding metaphor is used in the most familiar of all the psalms. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name s sake. (Psalm 23:1-3) 1 Throughout the Old Testament, God is often represented as the Shepherd and the people of Israel as the sheep of his flock. The way God cared for Israel is the way in which the spiritual leaders of the nation were expected to care for the people. Some, however, were condemned for being unfaithful shepherds. In the New Testament, Christ is represented as the good shepherd. This is what Jesus called himself in John 10:11. Leaders of the church were told to shepherd the flock of God that is among you (1 Peter 5:2). And in verse four they were promised when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Church leaders were expected to follow the example of Jesus, the chief Shepherd, in the way they led the members in their care. There is also a sense in which all Christians are to participate in shepherding as they care for one another. Shepherding, however, is a term that is often misunderstood. There are also some religious titles that are misunderstood. What do you suppose the average person in the United States today would think about the titles Elders, Pastors, and Bishops? My guess is that they would think that elders are lay leaders and not members of the clergy. 5
A N I NTRODUCTION T O D IFFERENT K INDS O F S HEPHERDING In the Presbyterian church, whose very name comes from the Greek word for elder most of the elders are members of a presbytery made up of lay leaders. The pastor in a Presbyterian church is the presiding elder directing the presbytery. But the pastor is a member of the clergy who is a seminary-trained, ordained, church-supported minister leading a local congregation. In the Mormon church, the title elder is worn by those 18-year old boys who go door-to-door trying to make converts for the Mormon faith. They are supported by their families, not by the Mormon church. In fact, all of the leaders of a Mormon congregation are self-supported. The popular perception is that most elders are not pastors, and most pastors are not bishops. The title Bishop is understood to mean someone very high in the organizational structure of a denomination. The various Orthodox Catholic Churches are led by Patriarchs. That would include the Greek, Eastern, Russian, Coptic, and Syrian Orthodox Churches. In the Roman Catholic Church that would include the pope who is seen as the universal bishop in charge of the whole church. It would include the Cardinal Bishops, Arch Bishops, and Bishops in charge of all the congregations in a nation, region, or city. Several Protestant denominations have a Bishop or Arch Bishop in charge of their whole denomination. The head of the Anglican Catholic Church, also known as the Church of England, is the Arch Bishop of Canterbury. In the United States the Episcopal Church has a Bishop in charge of the whole denomination. So does the Methodist Church, Lutheran Church, Church of the Nazarene and others. In all of these denominations, there is a clergy-laity separation. Some are priests, but the rest are just lay members. Just a few super-christians are called saints. But as we begin this study, I would ask you to go back with me to the first century church as we read about it in the New Testament. I believe that there is a pattern of what God wanted the church to be and to do all over the world and throughout all the ages to come. That pattern is not any of those imperfect churches that we read about in the New Testament. It is not the Jerusalem church with its racial prejudice toward Gentiles. It was not the church in Corinth with all its internal problems. It was not the lukewarm church in Laodicea. Instead, the pattern is in what those churches were called to become. Having bishops, pastors, and elders as different groups of leaders is something that evolved over many years of church history but without any 6
S HEPHERDING G OD S F LOCK biblical justification. The same thing is true of other religious titles. The church that we read about in the New Testament was an informal fellowship of independent congregations with no hierarchy over the local congregations. There were no Archbishops, Cardinals, Popes, or Patriarchs. All Christians were called saints. All Christians were called priests men and women, young and old. There was no clergy-laity separation. These things came later but without any biblical justification. The Meaning of Shepherding The books of the New Testament were written in the Greek language. There are three Greek words for leadership roles and functions in the congregations: two nouns, presbuteros and episkopos; and one verb poimeno. The Latin Vulgate was the only translation of the Bible available in many parts of the world for around 1,000 years. In Latin these three Greek words are translated as presbyter, bishop and pastor. These three Latin words were adopted into the English language without being changed. Most modern English versions of the New Testament use familiar words of Anglo-Saxon origin: elder, overseer, and shepherd. There are, therefore, six English words that all translated the three words in the original Greek text: three of Latin origin and three of Anglo-Saxon origin. Although these words are now used for different church offices, it was not so originally. Two passages in the New Testament (with emphasis added) show clearly that in the early church these three terms were applied to the same individuals. In Acts 20:17 Paul called for the elders of the church in Ephesus to meet him in the port city of Miletus. Then in Acts 20:28 Paul told these elders to Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Of course the overseers of a flock are shepherds. And Paul told these elders and overseers to shepherd the church of God. In the original Greek text he used the word poimeno, which is the verb form of the noun for shepherd. Another New Testament passage that makes the same point is 1 Peter 5:1-3. Peter addressed the elders among you as a fellow elder and he instructed them to shepherd the flock that is among you, exercising oversight...being examples to the flock. In both of these passages it is clear that these three terms applied to the same group of men. Elders and overseers is what they were called. Shepherding is what they were told to do. There are several different kinds of church leadership that will be 7
A N I NTRODUCTION T O D IFFERENT K INDS O F S HEPHERDING discussed in this book. Some of the focus will be on a deliberative decision-making function of elders acting as a body. Consideration will also be given to an administrative function of overseers supervising various ministries of the church. Pastoral counseling and member-to-member influence will also be discussed. All of it under a general heading of Shepherding God s Flock. There is a sense in which all the descendants of Adam and Eve are God s flock. In the Old Testament, however, God had a special relationship with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The people of Israel were God s flock in a unique way. In the New Testament it is the heirs of Abraham s faith and not just of his flesh who are the chosen people of God (Romans 4:16). In this book, as we talk about shepherding God s flock, the flock is the church. Misunderstandings About Elders Some people do not understand that the word elder as used in the New Testament is a metaphor. A few have taken the position that the word elders in the New Testament was simply a reference to the older men of the congregation. These older men, according to this view, lead the church by their example and their teaching, but they have no decision-making role or collective function. Their claim, according to this view, is that there were elders, but no eldership. This idea is not new. J. W. McGarvey answered those arguments almost 150 years ago. 2 Although the King James Version does not have the word eldership, McGarvey pointed out that the word presbuterion in 1 Timothy 4:14 clearly refers to a body of leaders in a local congregation. 3 That was when the council of elders laid hands on Timothy as they set him apart as a missionary to work with the apostle Paul. Older men, of course, is the literal meaning of presbuteros. But as McGarvey pointed out, certain men in the New Testament were ordained or appointed as elders (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). Men are not made older by appointment. 4 For this reason when the reference is to leaders in a local congregation, the word elders must be understood as a figure of speech, a metaphor for a leadership role and not just a reference to age. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for elder does not always mean older men. There are times when the elders of a village, city, tribe, or nation are represented as having a decision-making leadership role. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word presbuteros did not always mean 8
S HEPHERDING G OD S F LOCK older men. Often the reference was to some kind of decision-making leadership role. Some believe that the only real shepherding that elders do is the individual shepherding that they do privately with one individual or one family at a time. That kind of one-on-one shepherding is very important. I thought that such individual shepherding was being neglected almost three decades ago when I wrote Church Leadership and Organization. 5 A major challenge at that time was to persuade elders that they had more to do than to attend meetings of the elders and make decisions about things the congregation was to do. Now, as I write this book, it seems to me that the pendulum has swung to an opposite extreme. Many preachers and writers who have discussed this subject recently have left the impression that what goes on when the elders come together to act as a body is not really shepherding. In most cases the recent books and articles about elders have not taken the position that there are no New Testament references to an eldership. They have simply ignored the collective function when elders act as a body. Instead, they have focused totally on the spiritual teaching, counseling, correcting, and encouraging that each elder does privately with one individual or one family at a time. Of course, there are still some elders who do very little of this personal kind of shepherding. About all they do is to attend the meetings of the elders. That, however, is not true of most elders today. Some very godly elders have had a burden of borrowed guilt placed on them. No matter how much time they spend in pastoral visits with members, it never seems to be enough. They could always do more. This kind of concern has caused some to resign from the eldership. We need to restore some balance to this discussion. I want to affirm that what elders do when they come together and act as a body really is a kind of shepherding. It is what I would call systemic shepherding. If they exercise this system-wide leadership of the congregation with the hearts of shepherds, it really is shepherding. A part of what that means is that their concern must be for the whole church. It also means that they must lead gently and not lord it over the church. In order to enlarge and clarify the shepherding of God s flock, I would invite the reader to join with me in a study of shepherding as a misunderstood metaphor. Chapter Two will discuss more fully the shepherding role of elders. In Chapter Three, the focus is on what it means for overseers of the church to work as shepherds. But first we need to have a clearer understanding of the shepherding metaphor. 9
A N I NTRODUCTION T O D IFFERENT K INDS O F S HEPHERDING How the Shepherding Metaphor Is Misunderstood The word shepherding is easy enough to understand when interpreted literally. It would simply be what a shepherd does to take care of a flock of sheep. One of the most important rules of Bible interpretation is that we should read the Bible in the same way we would read any other written document. The Bible is not written as some kind of mysterious code. We should interpret the language of the Bible literally unless there is some logical reason within the text or the historical and literary context to attribute some figurative meaning to the author of a passage that we are studying. There are many places in the Bible where words such as shepherd, sheep, and flock should be interpreted literally. Obvious examples include Genesis 4:2 where Abel is called a keeper of sheep; Exodus 3:1 where Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law; and Luke s account of the birth of Jesus: And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear (Luke 2:8-9). 6 There is no reason within the text to understand this language as a reference to anything other than literal shepherds taking care of literal flocks of sheep. It is only when shepherding is used as a metaphor that it is misunderstood. It is easy enough to understand the figurative use of the term shepherding when the reference is to the way God cares for his people in the same way that a biblical shepherd cared for his flock of sheep. The 23rd psalm is not the only place where God is called a shepherd. In Psalm 79:13 the writer addresses God with the promise, But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise. Then in the familiar Psalm 100, we read, Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3). There is a sense in which God s flock includes the entire human race. He is, after all, the giver of every good thing that all men and women everywhere enjoy. Some people say that they have no need for God, but they have never lived without all the good things that come from God. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). There is only one place where God is not present, and it is hell. The absence of God and all his blessings is the real meaning of hell. There are places in the Old Testament where the shepherd metaphor is a prophetic reference to the Messiah: He will tend his flock like a shepherd; 10
S HEPHERDING G OD S F LOCK he will gather the lambs in His arms; he will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those that are with young (Isaiah 40:11). Jesus called himself the good shepherd (John 10:1-18). The author of Hebrews called Jesus the great Shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20). There is a contrast in 1 Peter 5:1-4 between Christ as the Chief Shepherd and the elders of the church who were told to shepherd the flock of God that is among you... There has not been much misunderstanding of the shepherding done by the Lord. The problem has come in regard to the shepherding role of elders and overseers in local congregations. Churches that historically are heirs of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement have claimed that we do not have a clergy-laity distinction and our only pastors are the elders. 7 In actual practice, however, the full-time church-supported ministers are treated like clergy. Although they have no authority by virtue of office, they have great influence in the church. Often they do more pastoral work than the elders who oversee the church have time to do. Almost all of the elders support themselves by some kind of secular work. There probably is no exact New Testament parallel to such positions as Pulpit Minister, Youth Minister, or any other of the titles currently in use. That does not mean that there is anything wrong with the ministry system that has developed. But there are important New Testament principles that should be applied in all systems of church leadership and ministry. There is an important pastoral dimension to the ministry of preachers. If preachers do not get to know the members of the congregation, they cannot understand the spiritual needs of those members. As a result, those preachers are likely to preach sermons that answer questions the members are not asking. It is especially important for those who oversee the church to understand that they cannot be effective decision-makers and administrators in isolation from their duties as pastors. What is needed is a balanced approach that recognizes the importance of all three roles: elders, overseers, and shepherds. Shepherding in the New Testament is what the elders who oversee the church were supposed to do. They were to lead the church with the same care for the whole church that a biblical shepherd had for his whole flock. They were to do for the members the kinds of things that biblical shepherds did for their sheep. But this shepherding metaphor has often been misunderstood. Translation problems reflect such misunderstandings. Furthermore, the misunderstandings extend to limited and incorrect views by some church leaders. 11
A N I NTRODUCTION T O D IFFERENT K INDS O F S HEPHERDING How Some Translators Misunderstood the Shepherding Metaphor Those who translated the King James Version of the Bible seem to have misunderstood the shepherding metaphor. They used the word feed to translate a New Testament Greek word poimeno that describes what shepherds do. Feed, however, does not reflect the work of biblical shepherds. The shepherds we read about in the Bible lived with their sheep. They led them to places where they could find green grass to eat and quiet waters where they could drink. They protected the sheep from wild animals such as wolves and lions. They guided the sheep with a rod of correction when the sheep went astray. The curve of the shepherd s staff brought the wandering sheep back to the way they should go. The shepherds tenderly cared for the injured sheep and bound up their wounds. They carried the lambs in their arms. They went into the wilderness to find lost sheep and bring them back to the fold. In biblical times there were occasions when several shepherds kept their flocks in a common sheepfold built in the open range where their sheep grazed. These were enclosed by a fence with one entrance that had a door or a gate. Shepherds might make a temporary sheepfold out of branches piled in a circle with an opening that would be guarded by one of the shepherds. In the morning, each shepherd would call his sheep by name and lead them out. The sheep followed him because they recognized his voice. These characteristics of biblical shepherding gave meaning to the shepherding metaphor as used in Psalm 23, Ezekiel 34, and John 10. Those who translated the King James Version must have known that the Greek word poimeno was a verb used to describe the kind of work done by a shepherd. But instead of using the biblical shepherd as the model, they used the model of how sheep were cared for in Great Britain in the early 17th century. By then there was little open range still left. Privately owned pastures were enclosed by rock fences. In the cold, wet parts of the year, the owners of the sheep would send the hired help to the pens where the sheep were kept and put out food for the sheep. When the weather permitted, the owners of the sheep would have the hired help move the sheep out of the pens and into enclosed pastures. The owners of the sheep showed up once a year to fleece the flock and slaughter some of the lambs. Surely fleecing the flock and slaughtering the lambs does not provide an acceptable model for the work of spiritual leaders in the church. 12
S HEPHERDING G OD S F LOCK How Some Elders Have Misunderstood the Shepherding Metaphor Because the King James version used the word feed to translate poimeno, in such places as Acts 20:17 and 1 Peter 5:1-3, some elders have taken that to mean that their primary duty was to provide spiritual food for the church. They understood the word feed to be a metaphor for teach or preach. If they were not able to do the teaching and preaching themselves, it was their job to appoint teachers and to hire preachers. But that understanding of shepherding is inadequate. The elements in the model of biblical shepherds imply a much closer and more personal relationship between elders and members. That, however, has led to other misunderstandings. There are really at least two different kinds of shepherding that elders do. Collective Shepherding is the kind of things elders do as a body. That includes strategic planning, policy-making, and decision-making done with a concern for the whole church, just as biblical shepherds were concerned about the whole flock. Individual Shepherding is done by elders one member or one family at a time. It is a kind of relationship that goes far beyond mere friendship. Some elders have been frustrated because of the belief that elders must have a close personal relationship with all the members of the congregation. They try to do that and find it to be an impossible task. This has led some elders to resign. Many have just stopped trying and have become isolated from the members. Their problem may be a failure to recognize that what the elders do as a body is a kind of shepherding. A more common problem is elders who do not recognize the need for anything more than Collective Shepherding. They do not see the need for elders to do any Individual Shepherding. How Some Members Have Misunderstood the Shepherding Metaphor One mistake that some Christians have made is to assume that decision-making is the only thing elders need to do. This assumption is reflected in the way we pray for our elders. Lord, bless our elders is almost always followed by Help them make good decisions. Why don t we pray Lord, bless our overseers and help them administer effectively delegating and supervising wisely? Why don t we pray Lord, bless our shepherds and help them be effective spiritual counselors and teachers? Perhaps the social contract of unwritten rules that we have developed recognizes nothing beyond a decision-making role. 13
A N I NTRODUCTION T O D IFFERENT K INDS O F S HEPHERDING Another mistake some church members have made is to assume that all of the spiritual counseling and teaching must be done by the elders. They have failed to recognize the need for Peer Shepherding. Many small congregations do not have elders, but the decision-making still needs to be done. They do not have overseers, but the administrative work must still be done. They do not have people with Shepherds as a title, but the shepherding still needs to be done. The one another passages in the New Testament clearly show that there is a kind of shepherding that Christians can and should do in their relationships with one another. Conclusion Although the shepherding metaphor has often been misunderstood and misused, it is still an important biblical concept. A proper understanding will require recognizing the important role that interpersonal relationships play in the church and in the life of individual Christians. It will also be essential to understand the need for focused relationships. If people think that they can be close personal friends with everyone in the church, they will water down their relationships to the point where those relationships do not do anyone any good at all. It is especially important for church leaders to recognize the need for different levels of relationships with different members of the church. NOTES 1. All scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are from the English Standard Version. 2. J. W. McGarvey wrote a series of editorial articles originally published in the Apostolic Times. In 1870 these editorials were published in book form with the title A Treatise on the Eldership. In 1950 that book was reprinted by DeHoff Publications of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 3. The various translations of presbuterion include council of elders (NRSV), body of elders (NIV), presbytery (NASB), and eldership (NKJV). 4. McGarvey, pp. 9-12. 5. (Nashville: Christian Communications, a division of the Gospel Advocate Company, Third Printing 1986). 6. All Bible quotations unless otherwise noted are from the English Standard Version. For readers who are not familiar with the ESV, I would recommend that they read the Preface to the ESV, especially the Translation Legacy and the Translation Philosophy, pp. vii-viii. 7. 2010 U.S. Religion Census is a reference book published by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Two groups that have historical roots in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement are still committed to the Restoration Plea and its effort to be both non-denominational and non-sectarian. Both of these exist and function as informal fellowships of independent 14
S HEPHERDING G OD S F LOCK congregations with no formal written creed and no central governing body. The larger of these groups is identified as Churches of Christ with 12,584 congregations having 1,228,988 members. The other group is identified as Christian Churches and Churches of Christ because some of these independent congregations use one name and some use the other. They have 5,293 congregations with 1,183,535 members. The most obvious difference between these two fellowships is that Churches of Christ have historically opposed the use of instrumental music in congregational worship assemblies while Christians Churches and Churches of Christ use instrumental music. 15