Supporting Somnolent Shepherds

I am NOT a shepherd. I wasn't called, nor am I fitted to the task. I know it, I accept it and I see God's hand in it.

Then there are those who are called to be shepherds and who apply themselves faithfully and diligently to their God appointed task. God bless them! Thank you, Lord for raising them up. Keep them and guide them as they strive to be instruments of your grace to your people.

Finally there are those who were either not called, or who have forgotten why they were called. To those I say, as in my earlier article by the same name "Get a Real Job! and stop troubling God's people."

I am a sheep, as I said. Feed me - don't entertain me. I have sat in the midst of congregations where the sheep have been crying out for food while the pastor entertained the flock and permitted every new thing that would tickle the fancy of the immature or the unsaved to pour into the church through any available opening.

It makes me angry to see it happening. And it absolutely bamboozles me as to why more people aren't just as angry as I am whenever this happens. I see people that I know are Christians sitting under pastors who teach or permit egregious error, or who feed pap to them, or who follow after every fad, or who spend more time keeping up to date and pursuing "larger" interests of ministry than they do tending the sheep assigned to them. Enough! Why don't the sheep rise up and call for these pastors to actually do their jobs?

When God appointed order and hierarchy in the church he didn't give us permission to be dupes or idiots. Every church member has a duty and a responsibility to expect sound teaching and pastoral care. Congregants are not to blindly and blithely accept in dumb submission the infection or neglect of Christ's Own commission among them.

Neither are they to sit in destructive judgment of every word their Pastor says. Pastors are not God - they are fallen men who need ministry themselves. Those who are flagging and failing need prayerful and loving admonition and encouragement. It is the congregation's job to love, support and minister to their pastor. But an intransigent and unresponsive pastor must be dealt with out of love for both flock and shepherd. Niceness is absolutely no excuse for neglect. And, in the end - because God is not mocked - congregations will always end up with the pastoral care they deserve.

There is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to wait and a time to act; a time to stay and a time to go; a time to fight and a time to make peace. Many Christians don't seem to know how to tell the time any longer.