Since becoming a pastor this verse has stuck out in my head. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; (1 Peter 5:2, ESV). Personally I believe there is a very good reason why this is the case. You see, since becoming a pastor it seems that anytime someone calls me or stops into my office they always apologize. I am not really sure why they apologize but this seems to be the case the majority of the time. For whatever reason they seem to think that they are an inconvenience. Honestly, this is somewhat bothersome to me on many levels.
It seems like the modern pastor has come into this mentality that their job is to advance their agenda. I am not quite sure where this comes from or at what point this began to happen. Pastors are busy writing books, perhaps preparing sermons, etc. and have little time for the people. Honestly I somewhat understand this with a Mega Church naturally a pastor can’t have time to see thousands of folks on a daily basis, but I do not understand this in smaller churches. To be clear, for me, a smaller church would be any church under 1000. Seriously, why is it that our people sometimes have to wait weeks to see there pastor or to schedule an appointment weeks in advance. Before you think this is only in Mega churches it is not. I can list churches running under 500 right now where this is the case. I often wonder what it would have been like if this is how Jesus did ministry. If he said “set up an appointment with my secretary”. Seriously, at what point did we stop shepherding and become so snobbish that we can’t have time for the people we are to be leading. Am I so arrogant to think that the only time I shepherd the flock is when I stand in the pulpit? How foolish we are to think this way.
Honestly, my mind can’t help to think of Jesus and the numerous times He is thought of as a Shepherd in scripture. I think of those times when He saw the masses and said they were like sheep without a shepherd. Yet as pastors we want to go in our office and close our door and continue to let our sheep wander. We constantly see Jesus with the people and we see this at all times of the day, morning, noon, and night. Shepherding takes place on a constant basis. Jesus did life with his disciples they hung out all of the time, and from there he did even a little more with three of them. In addition to the disciples he spent a ton of time with people, the masses were constantly pressing in on him. Yes he took time away, but why is it we constantly see Him respond to the needs of people? Because he loved them. Because He was the chief Shepherd. As pastor’s we must love our people enough to shepherd them. We must spend time with them. They should never feel guilty about coming in to see us, and we should never make it so difficult for them to see us. I want to shepherd is such a way that the people I am leading know I love them. I pray this is the case.