I know I need to lose a few pounds, but that’s not what a heavy shepherd means. The phrase heavy shepherd comes from America, and comes from the seventies, although some church leaders have been involved in this sort of behaviour all over the world, and for much longer than since the seventies.
What heavy shepherding is in a nutshell is a system of control where the people in a church cannot do anything without the permission of their pastor. I have encountered heavy shepherding several times in my life. In one church I went to, we were not allowed to go on holiday without permission from the pastor, in another we were actually told what colour socks to wear on Sunday. Not as ushers or part of the band, just to turn up!
I know churches where people cannot do anything, get married, flow in the gifts, or do anything, without permission from their pastor. Now of course there is a balance to this. You cannot just get up and speak in a church service if you are not the leader, but what you do outside of the church is not under the leadership of a pastor.
We are not there to control people, we are not there to tell people who to fellowship with. Right now there are two people who are utter liars and I wish certain people in the church didn’t listen to them, but I am not there to control the sheep, I am there to feed the sheep. I give people the Word, but people are still people and are free.
Again, there is a balance to this. You will be responsible for what you allow in the flock, in the services. Don’t invite a guest speaker who teaches nonsense, don’t let someone lead worship who raises their fists to you and tells your son to go and kill himself, don’t let someone flow in the gifts who has got two different women who are not his wife pregnant, don’t let someone who is constantly causing division even attend the services. You are responsible to lead the flock!
Some travelling speakers have their own agenda. I’ve had a guest speaker once try and take some of the wealthier people in the church out for breakfast to invest in some scheme – I cannot allow that to happen, that’s in my realm of authority. I had one guest speaker in the middle of our conference tell everyone our conference was no good, and his was much better. I did not invite him again. His conference stopped and is no longer in existence, our summer conference is still going and growing! We must protect our people from abuse.
But the other side is also a problem – when as pastors we get involved in things that are outside of our realm of authority. Our job is to make sure we are feeding the flock, but we cannot force them to eat. I can refuse to platform someone who does not want to submit to the Word and act in love. I don’t have to let them lead the worship or the service or preach, but I cannot go round their house and force them to act like Jesus. That’s out of my realm. You start getting involved in things out of your realm – there is no grace for that, and you will start to cause havoc. Focus on feeding the flock. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink! It can feel very frustrating but do what you can do and trust God for the rest.
I went to one church and they wanted me to tithe as I got paid, they wanted to set up a standing order, see my payslips and set it all together. I have had people come to Tree of Life Church and ask permission to go to a conference. Now, of course, if someone is always at conferences at churches down the road, but doesn’t go to our conferences, if someone’s social media is post after post of the sermons of dozens of other pastors, but never shares one of our sermons, or services – well, I have no ability to control that, but I can control me.
Refusing to make someone an elder who does not tithe, does not ever celebrate the church’s media on their social media, who does not come to our summer conference to go to some other preacher’s conference – that is good shepherding. But if I send the boys around their house to rebuke them the week after the conference, or if I tell someone you cannot be in this church if you follow such and such on social media, that’s heavy shepherding. It’s about knowing where your authority ends. You are in charge of the church, you are not in charge of the small details of the personal lives of the people who come.
And criticism goes both ways – there are bully pastors and there are also people in the church call a pastor a bully for just leading the church. Either way, you as a pastor need to know where the lines are. Peter tells pastors not to lord it over their churches (1 Peter 5.3). Focus on teaching well and setting a great example in your life, speech, marriage, family.
As you are praying about how to shepherd, let me tell you something – not shepherding is easy, heavy shepherding is also easy, good shepherding is hard. Someone comes to you and says “how much should I give to the church”.
The lazy shepherd says “it doesn’t matter how much you give, it’s all grace, I don’t even talk about finances”. That’s not shepherding, but many pastors choose that approach. Heavy shepherding takes someone’s payslips, does the maths for them, sets up a standing order for them, and publicly shames them if they stop giving. That’s also wrong, but it’s also easy.
True shepherding involves teaching Biblical, sound truth on giving. You let people know what the Word says on tithing, on stewardship, on sowing and reaping, you challenge the presumptions that teaching on giving makes you all about the money and out of love, you follow the Holy Spirit and you enable the Holy Spirit to convict people’s hearts and let them respond in faith to the Spirit.
That takes effort, study, prayer, wisdom, skill, and it is not easy. But that’s shepherding. You have to rely on the Holy Spirit, not on your force of personality, but you build people who are walking by faith, not externally obeying out of guilt and fear.
Selah.
Inspiring and Challenging Dreamers 