Each and every Christian in some form of leadership is a shepherd of the Lord. Whether you are a lead pastor of an entire church, a staff pastor in charge of a large or small ministry within the church, or you are a lay leader leading everything from whole departments, to a Sunday School teacher with half a dozen kids under your care. Whether the people you lead know the Lord or not, you are called to shepherd them in the Lord and represent Jesus well as you lead. Ezekiel chapter 34 is a chapter about God bringing Israel back from the lands that they were scattered to the land He promised them. In the telling of this prophetic promise God reveals to us that the spiritual leaders, aka: shepherds of Israel, were an example of what a bad spiritual shepherd/leader looks like. The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. Ezekiel 34:1-4 NIV84. Those of you who have been broken under know what a bad spiritual leader looks like, too well. Spiritually and emotionally abusive senior church leaders make bad examples of spiritual leadership for sure, but you are called to something better. You are called to put in place and reproduce a healthy spiritual leadership atmosphere in your church, ministry and even wider community that needs Christ's salvation. So what are some of the most important things we can do to pursue being a good spiritual shepherd and representing the Father well through the son Jesus?

 

Take care of the sheep first.

We live in such a narcissistic, self-centered world. Outside of hero movies, people making real world living sacrifices for Heaven’s sake on behalf of others who may or may not reciprocate, is a rarity. But for the spiritual shepherd, it’s the life they live, because it’s the call of spiritual leadership. Now, this isn’t a call to be a door mat, or allowing yourself to be emotionally abused, and it’s certainly not a call to do things that will prevent self-care. You need spiritual, emotional and physical reserves to live an effective life for the Lord. It does mean that your life and ministry is about others first, which means sacrifices in time, and your material situation. It means instead of pursuing an easy life will with comfort, you are willing to place that aside so that lost sheep can come home, and that found sheep are spiritually and emotionally feed and watered, so they can thrive as healthy believers themselves.

 

Take care of the lost and the weak.

In the last ten years the modern church easily comes under the charge that it has become even more hungry for notoriety, power, and wealth. There are now literally dozens of so called “ministries” that point out the opulence of some Christian leaders. Now these semi-Christian outfits may be destructively cynical, and completely spiritually unhealthy in their conclusions, but many of their observations are spot on. Abusive spiritual leaders get their value grid from the world’s broken and destructive corporate and celebrity cultures. So, when the Christian emulates that value culture it becomes a lesson in living and dying by the swords of the world's destructive leadership culture. A leader in that leadership culture can justify stepping on the heads of weaker, less powerful people to climb the rungs of success in the church to gain their own notoriety.

 

Not so for the healthy Christian shepherd/leader who values people as Christ does.  All people, regardless of how poor, currently viewed as un-useful, quiet, or not worth the time are actually worthy of the attention and care from the shepherd/leaders of the Lord. As leaders we all have our time retrains because of ministry responsibilities and family, but good spiritual leaders in the kingdom always value everyone, even the messed-up ones, as people who through the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit have the potential to take their place as a strong and important part of the body of Christ. Good shepherd leaders value everyone as Jesus does.

 

Lead with grace and mercy.

Every season or so I return to 1 Timothy 3:1-7. It’s the qualifications/goals to aim for in being a good shepherd. There’s not one mandate in scripture calling spiritual leaders in the church to lead with the values of obtaining wealth, political power in the church (or outside the church!) or fame, or influence. If you lead a ministry in the church, you oversee that ministry, you are in spiritual essence the shepherd of that ministry, even if its "only" six kids in a Sunday School. Paul sets before us the way for leaders to be (or Overseers, aka in the modern church: shepherds/pastors). Temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not violent but gentle, not argumentative and not a pursuer of monetary gain. Spiritual and emotionally abusive spiritual leaders fit none of those qualifications, and they see little need to walk in the Lord’s directives. So, the goal for you is to work towards being a Timothy type spiritual leader, wherever you lead in the church. These fruits of the Spirit do not cancel out your passion for the Lord, they are the character that flows out of passionate leaders who are walking in the Lord’s ways in their leadership. When you do, you will find that your ministry will be approachable and fruitful in the lives of those God has called you to shepherd.

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The church, and our communities, need good shepherds. Those who only have the mind and the goals of Christ in the way they lead the people of God, and by extension the communities they live in. I want to encourage you to re-read Ezekiel 34 and 1 Timothy 3:1-7 again, and let the word of God guide you as you continue the journey of your call to Kingdom leadership towards healthy leadership relationships.