Shepherding

Britain's so-called "loneliest sheep," which was stuck at the foot of a remote cliff in Scotland for at least two years, has been rescued. Cammy Wilson, who led the rescue mission, said it was a risky one. That's why, despite past attempts by others, the sheep had been stuck for so long.

The sheep was first discovered in 2021, on the shore of the cliff in Brora by kayaker Jillian Turner. Photos show the sheep at the base of the cliff surrounded by steep rock on one side and water on the other.

In October of 2023 Turner said she has spotted the sheep several times since and the sheep hasn't been able to move off her spot on the base of the cliff. Turner said, “It is heart-rending. We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year.”

Wilson, runs a Facebook page called "The Sheep Game" that chronicles his life as a farmer. After another farmer brought the sheep to his attention, he named the sheep Fiona and continued to give updates about her on Facebook.

Wilson then had an exciting update for followers. He and four others used a winch, a mechanical device that can act like a pulley, to get to Fiona. One person stayed at the top of the cliff, while the others traveled about 820 feet down the cliff to get to her.

In a statement, the Scottish SPCA said the group was notified of the rescue. Scottish SPCA said, "Our Inspector checked over the sheep and found her to be in good bodily condition, although needing sheared. The ownership of the sheep then was handed over to Dalscone Farm, a tourist attraction in Edinburgh with activities for children.

You can view pictures of the sheep and the cliff here.

A sheep named Baarack received a much-needed shearing after rescuers in Australia found the abandoned animal with more than 75 pounds of wool weighing it down. A video of his transformation on TikTok has more than 18.5 million views. After rescuing Baarack, sanctuary staff gave him the long-overdue shearing and found the fleece clocked in at about 78 pounds.

According to Kelly Dinham with Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary, sheep need at least yearly shearing to keep their coats light enough for the animals, otherwise it will continue to grow. Despite his heavy fleece, Baarack was actually underweight after being sheared. The wool around his face impaired his vision, too. Dinham said they found grit and debris "pooling in the gap between his cornea and the lid." And a grass seed stuck in there had caused an ulcer.

If a sheep goes for an extended period of time without adequate care, the overgrown wool can lead to build up of manure and urine that then could lead to infection, according to a North Dakota State University fact sheet on sheep shearing.

Possible Preaching Angle

This illustration easily applies to the Chief Shepherd and his sheep (and the undershepherd and their flock). As the sheep of his pasture, we need to be under the care of our Shepherd, otherwise we can wander off (Luke 15:4) or be attacked (Acts 20:29). We need those peaceful streams and quiet pastures, and his loving care (John 10:1-18; Psalm 23:1-6).

Three years ago, Debra Mejeur and her husband Steven took Lola on a trip to Elk Grove, a suburb of Chicago, to visit friends. Then they received a call from neighbors that Lola was running down the street after escaping from the chain link fence and commenced what would turn into a lengthy search for her.

For two months, Debra and her husband drove three hours to Elk Grove every weekend to look for Lola, but the trips became costly and the trips slowed down. It was emotionally and physically exhausting. Debra said, “It was just devastating. I hated leaving Elk Grove because it just felt like I was abandoning her.”

Debra held out hope for finding Lola. She joined every Elk Grove neighborhood group she could find and would post every year on the anniversary she went missing asking if anyone had seen her. She even sought advice from a professional dog rescuer. She hoped that if someone out there had taken Lola in that they would care for her as much as she did.

Debra’s wish was granted and a couple in Glendale Heights did look after Lola. They noticed her in the woods and set out food and water for her for a year. Finally, they gained her trust enough to put a leash on her and take her to the DuPage County Animal Services. Debra received a text saying her pet Lola’s microchip had been detected and to contact Animal Services in Illinois. Debra said, “They are amazing people who did a very selfless act.”

In the yard in front of the animal shelter Lola was timid at first and hid behind the vet. She then gave Debra a few sniffs and a big lick on the forehead before her tail started wagging wildly and she burrowed into Debra for a hug. When she noticed Debra’s husband, Lola bounded over to him knocking him to the ground with excitement.

Lola was in good health with no noticeable signs of injury or trauma, although she had lost 10 pounds. Debra said, “I wish she could talk because I would probably give her a little lecture, too. ‘You’re not supposed to run away. Don’t do it again.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Identity in Christ; Security in Christ – Debra’s missing dog was found because it was marked with a microchip. Believers can never be lost because we are marked with God’s seal of ownership (Eph. 1:13). 2) Lost; Lostness - We have also wandered away from God, but he never stops searching for us. (Luke 19:10)

In the film Greyhound, actor Tom Hanks plays the captain of a US destroyer that is commanding the escorts of a 37-ship convoy. They are crossing the Atlantic in 1942, at the height of the “Battle of the Atlantic.” The story focuses on the three-days that the convoy is in the “Mid-Atlantic Gap,” where they do not enjoy the benefits of air-cover. The convoy is subjected to relentless attack by a U-boat “wolf pack.” The U-boats sink seven ships from the convoy and one of the accompanying escorts. The escorts in turn sink a number of the U-boats. The majority of the convoy makes it through, delivering essential troops and supplies.

The intensity of the combat is unrelenting. Hanks is on the bridge of his ship throughout. A running motif of the film is that he never gets to eat. His stewards keep preparing him food, and bringing it to him, but when it arrives there is yet another attack and the food almost invariably crashes to the deck. In a poignant scene towards the end, he changes his boots for slippers because his feet are bloodied by standing for such a long period.

The film is based on the book The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester, and the title indicates the spiritual symbolism of the story. Hanks’ character is clearly a committed Christian, who is shown praying at his bedside, and he has a prominent sticker of Hebrews 13:8 in his cabin.

Possible Preaching Angle:

C. S. Forester must have realized convoy escort duty is a good parallel for the work of Christian ministry. Pastors and leaders are called to protect their flock from the attacks of the enemy and ensure that they reach their destination safely.

Belichick & Saban: The Art of Coaching, is a documentary that offers an exclusive look at their annual coaching retreat, where Bill Belichick and Nick Saban have an in-depth conversation about their interwoven history and coaching philosophies.

As they converse about changes in coaching over the span of 5 decades, they land on the topic of social media. Belichick is not a fan of social media. He once told reporters that he was not even on “SnapFace.” Belichick and Saban have this exchange:

Belichick: I hate social media. We get rid of it whenever we can. Do things where you don’t bring your phone, you just have a conversation with the other person in the eye instead of texting back and forth. But it’s the way of the world . . . It still comes back to fundamental relationships and communication and there’s no cell phones on the field. You better know what your teammate’s doing, he better know what you’re doing or, you know, you’re going to get beat.

Saban: And I think because of social media, they're getting a lot of their positive self-gratification … without looking somebody in the eye, without developing a relationship with them. And I think that’s a critical part that they all need to develop and you need it to have a team.

Belichick: No question. Who cares how many likes you get from 2000 people you don’t even know? There are 53 guys in the locker room. Those are the 53 that matter.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people are trying to get your attention. You and I must be able to identify the 53 that matter. The dozen that matter? The four that matter? The One who really matters?

Here's an easy method for testing whether a sermon can deliver: ... Change the setting from a public situation to an individual one. Take away the pulpit, the pews, the choir. Move to a kitchen table. The preacher on one side, a couple of friends on the other.

Notice how the volume of one's voice drops, and the frequency of gesticulations decreases. One's theology also becomes more modest, less confident. Notice too an increased concern for the responese of one's listeners. A preacher might even look to them for help in this vital quest for God's Word, God's love, God's peace. If a minister can preach in that same way to me from the pulpit I'll have what I want from a sermon, and so will his or her members.

There is a sense of relief in remembering that I'm not God and am therefore not responsible for being God. ...

Sometimes, as a Bible teacher I feel that God has put me beside a cliff where people dance close to the edge. I say to them, "Look, if I were you I wouldn't get so close. I have seen people go over, and they always get hurt. Some of them get killed." And they say, "Pastor, I really appreciate your telling me that. I didn't realize it was so dangerous." And then they jump! I have gone to the Lord and said, "Father, I'm tired of standing by this cliff. I tell them not to jump, and they thank me just before jumping. I feel so responsible for the pain." And the Father reminds me through His Word, "Son, you are not responsible for the jumping; you are responsible for the telling. As long as you are faithful, you don't have to play God."

In a church in Verona stands, or rather sits, a wooden image of St. Zeno, an ancient bishop, with knees so ludicrously short that there is no lap on which a baby could be held. He was not the first nor the last ecclesiastic who has been utterly incapable of being a nursing father to the church. It would be good if all ministers had a heavenly instinct for the nourishing and bringing up of the Lord's little ones, but this quality is sadly lacking.

People who want to be shepherded tend to stay in the same place.

Back when the sacred authors used the imagery of the shepherd to depict Jesus, they had a clear understanding of the job description. A shepherd is needed only when there are no fences. He is someone who stays with his sheep at all cost, guiding, protecting, and walking with them through the fields. He's not just a person who raises sheep. Though our bishops consider themselves "tenders of the flock," most are nothing more than mutton farmers. They build fence after fence, keeping the flock within sight so they don't have to dirty their feet plodding through the open fields. After all, the landowner frowns upon dirty feet.

Mama says everybody loved Uncle Ceph. Cephas Poe was Mama's daddy, but everybody called him Uncle Ceph.

Uncle Ceph pastored in a different world. First Assembly of God stood on a hill outside a little town tucked into the Arkansas River Valley. Men worked in the cotton fields and coal mines. Despite the Depression, people still grew their pole beans and bought peaches off the truck and canned them, got milk from the cow and eggs from the store, baked biscuits and cornbread, fried chickens, and once in a while treated themselves to a store-bought candy bar and a Coke.

Pastoring in that context wasn't idyllic. Seems the radio was causing people to waste a lot of time on Fibber McGee and Molly and baseball games. Families weren't broken on the outside, but cotton farmers and coal miners could be a hardened lot who worked hard all week, drank and danced in the sawdust honky-tonks on Saturday night, fished all day Sunday, and didn't think much beyond their families' physical needs, if that. AIDS wasn't a scourge, but Black Lung was, and suffering and death feel pretty much the same whether or not branded with an acronym and federal funding.

Uncle Ceph took care of his family. In addition to preaching out on the hill on Sunday morning and Sunday night and in town to the colored church in the afternoon, he delivered bananas during the week, hauling them in his pick-up from the train station in Clarksville to fruit stands and grocery stores. Mama remembers flying around Ozark hairpin curves, singing "God Will Take Care of You" and believing it was true.

I don't know if Uncle Ceph had to carve time into a busy schedule for his family; Mama remembers his coming home from work, drawing a bucket of water, putting a chunk of ice in it, and making lemonade for everybody. They all drank out of the same dipper.

I never knew Uncle Ceph. Before I was born his heart wore out with caring for Adabelle, whose own heart was worn out. But I'm glad he lived in a different world.

I'm glad he didn't have to wrestle with reams of ideology about the effectiveness of his cross-cultural ministry and could devote himself to feeding some small-town folks with different skin. I'm glad he didn't have to feel guilty about his limited exposure to the most innovative ways of building bridges, and went about instead being who he was to the fruit sellers and depot workers and neighbors and dime-store owners. I'm glad he wasn't made impatient with his "bi-vocational ministry" and gave himself to faithfulness there instead of straining to stretch it into a church where success was measured by a growing budget.

I'm glad he didn't have to worry about what the experts say about methods and marketing and expectations and options and cultures, and just did what he thought God wanted him to do. What grief to think of such a servant being greeted in Glory: "Mediocre job, Ceph. Your ministry wasn't marked by excellence and efficiency. But come on in and enter the joy of your Master anyway."

I'm glad he was met in heaven by Someone with standards different from ours.

I own a marvelous little book written nearly a quarter of a century ago by a former shepherd, Philip Keller. He titled the book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm Twenty-Three, He tells about his experience as a shepherd in east Africa. The land adjacent to his was rented out to a tenant shepherd who didn't take very good care of his sheep: his land was overgrazed, eaten down to the ground; the sheep were thin, diseased by parasites, and attacked by wild animals. Keller especially remembered how the neighbor's sheep would line up at the fence and blankly stare in the direction of his green grass and his healthy sheep, almost as if they yearned to be delivered from their abusive shepherd. They longed to come to the other side of the fence and belong to him.

Christians understand that the identity of the shepherd is everything. It is wonderful to be able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd."

Frederick Martin (1704-1750) established the ministry on St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. One secret of the success of this native of Upper Silesia was the personal interview. In his spare time he went from town to town and attempted to make the personal acquaintance of every black on St. Thomas. Moved by his interest in them, the slaves attended services in the church built on plantation property he had purchased with Moravian funds. In his first year, 700 blacks are reported to have converted to faith in Christ. But when Martin began baptizing them, the local Dutch pastor accused him of not being properly ordained. A trial ensued. Because Martin and his coworkers Matthias Freundlich and his wife would not take an oath, they were fined. Unwilling to pay the fine, they were imprisoned. They remained there three months until Count Zinzendorf arrived. Not knowing of the preceding events, he had them immediately set free. The opposition could not defeat Martin, no matter what they tried. In the castle jail, he preached nightly through the bars to a gathered crowd while his black assistant Mingo preached in the church. Martin died in 1750 in St. Croix. By 1760 the Moravian church in the West Indies reported 1,600 baptized believers and 3,600 souls under the care of the mission.

To truly care for people requires not caring too much about their approval or disapproval.

I beg you, do not look upon [this parish] as a steppingstone, but rather say: Here I shall stay as long as it pleases God; if it be his will, until I die. Look upon every child, your confirmands, every member of the congregation as if you will have to give account for every soul on the day of the Lord Jesus. Every day commit all these human souls from the worst and the weakest of hands, namely, your own, into the best and strongest of hands. Then you will be able to carry on your ministry not only without care but also with joy overflowing and joyful hope.

Those to whom you minister may not always perfectly understand what you say, but they will soon know whether you love them or not. The secret of many a successful Christian worker is not that he is skilled, knowledged, and has endowments which are superior to others, but that those to whom he ministers know that he really cares about them, not in some abstract way, or from sense of duty, but wanting with all his heart the best that God wants for them.