August 2024
How Should Pastors and Elders Relate to the Sheep?
Feature Article
August 2024
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How should pastors and elders relate to the sheep? In a brief article such as this, we cannot cover all the facets of faithful pastoral care, but perhaps we can establish some fundamental principles to guide and instruct both shepherds and sheep concerning the proper character of the pastoral relationship. Let us consider four fundamental aspects of how pastors and elders should relate to those under their care.
First, pastors and elders should act purposefully and with gospel intentionality. As well-meaning pastors and elders, we are often content to relate to church members in ways that simply promote our general likability. We talk about work, what the kids are up to, shows we have watched, or the ball game from the past weekend. Now, there is nothing wrong with talking about such things. These kinds of conversations can play an important part in building genuine relationships. The problem is that sometimes our conversations never get beyond these kinds of easy, natural, and safe topics. And while such safe conversations may promote a sense that the pastor is likable, they generally fail to stir up and promote the genuine spiritual maturity that the Scriptures call for.
The Apostle Paul presents his pastoral purpose in various ways, but his language reveals an overriding gospel-centered intent and purpose. He labored to “make the word of God fully known” (Col. 1:25) so that he might “present everyone mature in Christ” (v. 28). He desired to see “Christ formed” in his readers (Gal. 4:19), and he longed to see “all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,” achieving maturity, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Paul was laboring not for people’s general approval but for their salvation and sanctification. Pastors and elders should have the same goals for the sheep in their care, and with these goals in mind, they must ultimately direct conversations to topics of repentance, faith in Christ, and new obedience. These kinds of deeper spiritual conversations require purposefulness and a pastoral willingness to initiate and take risks, often through thoughtful and direct questions and faithful persistence. Therefore, pastors and elders must pursue relationships with gospel purposefulness with the express goal of fostering spiritual maturity in the sheep under their care.
A second way that pastors and elders should relate to their flock is fervently and with genuine love. When Paul spoke of his desire to see Christ formed in the Galatians, he spoke of himself as one “in the anguish of childbirth” (Gal. 4:19). Paul’s ministry was not simply one of correct theological priorities but one of personal intensity and affection of the deepest order. He loved those in his care, and he longed for their spiritual welfare. In Acts 20, we see Paul laboring for the Ephesian church in such a way that he was “innocent of [their] blood.” Paul knew that the gospel ministry was a matter of life and death with eternity hanging in the balance. He had a fervent “blood earnestness” in his ministry, which was not just a category of theological orthodoxy but involved personal affection. Paul speaks of his personal connection to the Thessalonian church by saying that he was
like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thess. 2:7–8)
Not only must pastors and elders relate to the sheep in their care with gospel purposefulness in the pursuit of Christian maturity, but all of this must be undergirded by fervent desire, grounded in personal affection and love for the sheep.
Another way that pastors and elders should relate to the sheep in their care is personally and individually. On this matter, Jesus lays down the clearest teaching when He speaks in Luke 15 of the man with a hundred sheep who goes looking for one lost sheep and the woman with ten silver coins who goes looking for the one lost coin. Jesus told these parables to emphasize that there is joy in heaven over “one sinner who repents” (v. 10). The Lord is concerned not simply with saving an innumerable throng from every tongue, tribe, and nation but with saving a people made up of distinct individuals, where every single person matters.
Likewise, the church should not be content with a “generally full” building where we provide competent pastoral care for those who request it. But our gospel purposefulness and fervent affection should be extended in thoughtful ways to every single member. This generally requires some system of accountability in which every member is known, accounted for, and sought after by church leadership. In many churches, people come and go with little to no awareness among church leadership of where or why people have gone. Many churches have membership rolls that have little to no correspondence to actual church attendance or body life. Hebrews 13:17 exhorts us, “Obey your [church] leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” I believe this account will be not only for the character of our pastoral care in general but also for the actual sheep who were entrusted to our care. Therefore, pastors and elders must be driven by gospel purposefulness, be fueled by fervent affection, and be personally accountable for each individual member of the church.
Finally, pastors and elders should relate to the sheep humbly and with ongoing personal repentance. When one thinks about the responsibility of being a faithful shepherd of God’s people, it is awe-inspiring and, in a very real sense, terrifying. The stakes are high, and shepherds will be called to account for their work in shepherding the people of God. We will be called to account for our teaching (James 3:1) and for our spiritual leadership and shepherding (Heb. 13:17).
Who is sufficient for these things? What leaders can stand before the Lord and declare their own “pastoral righteousness”? This is incredibly humbling and should drive every shepherd to his knees in repentance and dependence on the mercy of the crucified and risen Christ. Such humble repentance should not be a one-time experience for pastors and elders but should be a consistent manner of life. The entire ministry of pastors and elders should be marked by personal humility in which we are mindful of our own need for Christ, not only for eternal salvation but for everyday life. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5), and only Christ’s faithful, loving, and personal shepherding of the shepherds enables pastors and elders to shepherd the flock of God.
Pastors and elders must not exercise arrogant, abusive, domineering leadership driven by spiritual pride and the pursuit of personal gain (1 Peter 5). Rather, they must be humble and repentant, fully conscious of their own personal need for the Savior, and then lovingly and personally lead the sheep to the same Savior who is shepherding the shepherds’ own souls.