Should a pastor be an entrepreneurial leader or a loving shepherd? A person who casts vision or who cares for broken people? Depending on which books you read and conferences you attend, you’ll hear it argued either way. To bring clarity to the debate, LEADERSHIP asked two respected voices to make their case for which role-shepherd or leader-should be primary for pastors today.
Why Pastors Must Be Shepherds
Shepherds endear themselves to the flock. It’s a wonderful style of ministry.
by H. B. London, Jr.
I began pastoral ministry in 1963. I was 23, fresh out of seminary, and assigned to a church on the wrong side of the street in a Southern California community. I was given practically no chance of pulling my little charge out of the doldrums. But I had learned from my heritage how important it was to love people. So I did.
I called in their homes, paid attention to their children, visited the sick in hospitals and nursing homes, prayed for the downtrodden and lonely. I made myself available and told them publicly that next to my family they were the most wonderful people in the world.
What happened next had little to do with my ability as a speaker or administrator but with my role as a servant-shepherd. The church grew. The folks began to believe in themselves. Because they believed in themselves, they cared for one another. Word got out that ours was a church where love was genuine. People came to see if that were true, found it so, and stayed.
That was nearly forty years ago. I went on to pastor three more churches before becoming a “pastor to pastors” at Focus on the Family, but my style never changed.
My colleagues would often poke fun of me. I still remember one of the most prominent pastors in our country laughing at my servant-shepherd style in front of a group of clergy. His jab hurt a bit then, and to be honest, it still does. But I would not change my way of leading. The most effective pastors minister from the marketplace up-not the pulpit down.
Call of character
A growing number of pastors have modeled their style after the megachurch pastors. They think, If it is good enough for them to be a CEO, why can’t I?
Yet I will almost guarantee that as these superstars were setting their original course, they too were servant-shepherd pastors. In their quieter moments, I suspect many wish for the simpler days when they could spend more time where their people live.
I have been told there are approximately 100,000 churches in North America with fifty people or fewer in a given service and that the average weekend attendance in our country is less than one hundred. I’ve also heard that eight out of every ten clergy with seminary training will never pastor a church of more than two hundred.
If that is true, then the need for CEOs is not so critical.
I propose that one of the most important aspects of being a pastor is fulfilling the role of servant-shepherd. Next to being faithful to God and attentive to spouse and family is the pastor’s responsibility as shepherd-one who knows the flock, listens to the flock, watches out for the flock, cares for the flock, corrects the flock, and spends a great portion of time with the flock. Shepherds endear themselves to the flock. It’s a wonderful style of ministry.
What is urgent is for our congregation and community to know that the shepherd of the flock is truly that-approachable, responsive, gentle, and genuinely filled with compassion. Those characteristics are more significant for the leader of the flock than academic degrees, church growth numbers, or status achieved.
At Focus on the Family, each year we promote October as Clergy Appreciation Month through our radio programs, magazine articles, and newspaper interviews. In 1995 we had a call-in program during Clergy Appreciation Week. We asked laypeople to tell us what they appreciated about their pastor and staff. In a short period of time, we received nearly four hundred calls.
Few of the respondents talked about what great preachers their pastors were or how adequately they administrated. Most related stories about a pastor who was there when they needed one, which I call the “ministry of presence.” This is simply being there when people are hurting, confused, and frightened; when they suffer loss and feel isolated and cut off; when they have won and need to celebrate; when they have been faithful and need affirmation.
Words to shepherd by
My granddad, a dearly loved, lifelong minister, had a great influence in my life. He was a servant-shepherd. The last time I was with him, he was terminally ill in a Houston, Texas, hospital. As the day was ending, in our final moments together, I put my hands in his and said, “Pop, I love you very much. I need to ask you something. Your ministry has been so effective. People listen to you. They trust you. They admire you. What has been your secret?”
His eyes filled with tears as he fought to form his words. In barely audible words, he responded, “Junior, it’s one thing to tell people how much God loves them . . . but it is also very important for them to know that you love them as well.”
Those were the last words I ever heard my granddad speak.
I was a young pastor then, but those words helped form my ministry style for the years that would follow. It is a ministry modeled after the Good Shepherd himself:
“He calls his own sheep by name. . . They will scatter at the sound of a stranger’s voice because they aren’t used to the sound of it. . . I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. . . I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep, and my own sheep know me. . . I put the sheep before myself” (John 10, The Message).
H. B. London, Jr., is vice president of ministry outreach/pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family.
Why Pastors Must Be Leaders
A call for pastors to lead is not a call for the corporate model to invade the church.
by James Emery White
Wheaton College professor Mark Noll wrote a provocative book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. His opening statements detail his concern: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”
To borrow from Noll, the scandal of pastoral leadership is that there is not much pastoral leadership.
It is not enough to say that pastors should be leaders. Pastors must be leaders. Leadership is at the heart of the pastoral role-both biblically and practically. Biblically, we are called to lead; practically, we must lead.
No great divorce
Shepherding is a clear dimension of the pastoral office, but it is far from its central role. Indeed, the Bible points to a distinct and defining leadership role for the pastor.
For example, in the pastoral epistles, specific requirements are listed for the pastoral office. One is a demonstrated track record in leadership evidenced by leadership within the home. Paul writes that “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)” (1 Tim. 3:4-5). The Greek verb translated manage, due to the middle voice, literally reads “to stand before” or “strongly lead.”
Furthermore, three terms are used in the New Testament for the pastoral office: poime, or pastor, indicating the role of shepherd for caring and feeding; presbuteros, or elder, indicating the role of one who is spiritually mature; and episkopos, or bishop, reflecting the task of oversight or management. Many denominations separate these into three separate offices, seemingly divorcing the shepherding role from the leadership dimension inherent within the idea of elder or bishop. In the Bible, however, the three terms were used interchangeably for the same office.
For example, in First Peter, we read: “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder. . . Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers . . .” (1 Peter 5:1-2). In Acts, Luke notes that “Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them . . . Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God” (Acts 20:17-18, 28).
Nowhere in Scripture is shepherding divorced from leadership.
No leaderless growth
The call to pastors to function as leaders would exist even without the biblical mandate. Willow Creek Community Church pastor Bill Hybels has said that the church is the most leadership-intensive organization in the world, more demanding than marketplace, military, or political leadership. The church is utterly voluntary and altruistic, he says, and as a result, will never rise above the level, commitment, and quality of its leaders. That’s well put.
A 1994 study at the Center for Creative Leadership identified the four most common reasons why managers derail their careers: interpersonal problems, inability to meet demands or needs, failure to lead a team, and the inability to adapt to change. Few would not argue that these four are the bane of ministers as well.
But note what the author of the study concludes: “And all four have to do with leading people.“
The bottom line is that leaderless organizations don’t work, and that includes the church. Studies on church growth indicate that the vast majority of churches are either plateaued or declining. For example, a twenty-year study of church membership between 1965 and 1985 revealed that virtually every mainline denomination is in decline, including United Methodist (down 16 percent), Episcopal (20 percent), Presbyterian (24 percent), and Disciples of Christ (42 percent). Figures released in 1991 indicate that more than 70 percent of all Southern Baptist churches-in one of the more evangelistic denominations-are either plateaued or declining. When broadened to include all U. S. churches, the figure leaps to 80-85 percent.
British demographer David Barrett notes that now more than 53,000 people leave church every week, never to return. And rumors of a mid-decade revival, supposedly counteracting these declines, seem to be premature. In January 1996, the Barna Research Group found during the week prior to being polled, only 37 percent of Americans attended a worship service. This was the lowest recorded level of attendance since Barna began tracking religious involvement in 1986.
A lack of leadership is not the solitary reason for the church’s contemporary struggles, but strong leadership is one of the most decisive factors for church growth.
Recaptured call
When Jesus discussed leadership, it was always in terms of servanthood (Mark 10:42-43). The servant image encourages us to view leadership not as power or prestige but as service and devotion. Yet a servant-model nowhere demands the abdication of the leadership role. Jesus was both servant and leader, and he never saw the two roles in a mutually exclusive manner. Throughout the Bible, God called his people to serve through leadership-Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Esther.
A call for pastors to lead is not a call for the corporate model to invade the church. It is a call to recapture the fullness of the biblical role for pastors, and to meet the needs of the church in our modern world. The pastor is a shepherd, but he is to fulfill that role through leadership.
James Emery White is pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
1996 by Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP, journal.
Last Updated: October 8, 1996
