|
|
The Church Should Have
Biblical Leadership
The Elders
Lets pretend that you’ve hit a snag and need some help; maybe temptation
has taken you under for the third time; you feel broken, in need of
mending; you’ve just done the worst sin of your life—again—and you don’t
even know how to confess it, let alone disentangle yourself.
Suppose you need to make a major decision and need advice and guidance;
perhaps a parenting challenge has pushed you beyond desperation or an
important relationship isn’t working; maybe you’ve just been told you
have a life-threatening illness; or maybe your faith is on the rocks.
WHO DO YOU CALL?
Hopefully you can answer this question. And prayerfully it would be
someone in this family.
God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that life and especially the Christian
life was hard and there would be times where we would all need help and
guidance. So as He designed the body He saw fit to make sure that the
church had appropriate leadership.
Turn with me to Acts 20 and lets see how the Bible defines this
leadership.
Verse 17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the
elders of the church.
Verse 28 "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which
the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God
which He purchased with His own blood.
Luke uses three different words to describe the same function: Elders,
Shepherds, and Overseers. It is this leadership that you would turn to
in a crunch. They should have the experience, character, and vision to
guide, comfort and advise the sheep of his flock.
The word for “elder” means to shepherd the congregation 1 Peter 5:2.
To oversee its affairs, to preach and teach 1 Timothy 5:17.
And to guard the moral purity of the congregation Titus 1:9.
An elder should also meet the spiritual maturity qualifications
established in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9.
But I believe that Jesus himself also touched on the job description of
an Elder but before we get to what type of leadership the Church should
have lets spend some times looking at some distorted views of Biblical
leadership.
Distorted Leadership Models
Several distorted leadership models find their way into modern-day
churches. They pop up in discussions about leader¬ship, distorting
perceptions of biblical shepherding and confusing sincere church
members. Most church members are not even conscious of their presence.
Yet many churches seem to have a love/hate relationship with them, even
a codependency.
Who are these guys, anyway?
Hired Hand
Jesus, in John 10, exposes our first distorted leadership model-the
hired hand. Read John 10:12-13
The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees
the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf
attacks the flock and scat¬ters it. The man runs away because he is a
hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
Back in ancient times, shepherding was not a part-time affair. Shepherds
did not get their jobs by dressing up, splashing on some "rugged"
cologne, and answering an ad in the newspaper: "Help wanted on sheep
ranch in remote rural area." Shepherds worked 24 hours a day 7 days a
week.
Jesus, who enters by the gate, stands in stark contrast to this "hired
hand," who apparently works only for a paycheck and cares nothing for
the sheep. The hired man, Jesus said, runs away when things get
difficult.
A modern-day hireling would be the kind of leaders who abandon the sheep
to save themselves. Some churches have "leaders" that wanted the
position only to garner power or visibility for themselves.
There was a story told of a church business meeting where they were
discussing the fact that thought they needed elders. One man asked,
“Anyone want to be an elder?” One man stood from his seat. They made him
an elder right then.
The problem with this type of leadership comes when the role requires
time-consuming counsel¬ing or elicits uncomfortable criticism, they
"abandon the sheep and run away" to save their own skin, and in so
doing, leave the flock vul¬nerable and scattered.
Cowboy
Another distorted model is that of cowboy. Some people in leadership
roles confuse shepherds and cowboys, but the differ¬ence is
elementary-shepherds lead; cow¬boys drive.
All of us have watched dusty westerns in which cowboys drive the herd by
shouting, cracking whips, or stinging the stubborn cattle with sticks
and prods.
But Jesus did not describe himself as "the brave cowboy"; rather, he
described himself as "the Good Shepherd." Cowboys wear spurs, ride
cutting horses, crack whips, and wield prods. Cowboys force the "herd"
to go their way.
Not so the shepherd. The shepherd depends upon relationship. Jesus leads
us in paths of righteousness-where we fear no evil and where our cups
run over, even in "the valley of the shadow of death." Jesus never
forced, drove, or coerced anyone to do anything he simply offered to
lead.
Matthew 4:19
Matthew 9:9
Matthew 16:24
Mark 8:34
John 12:26
And the passages go on and on but more importantly Jesus does not expect
his sheep to go where he has not gone. His challenge is not that we
strike out on our own in unknown territory, but that we fol¬low him: In
Luke 9:23 He says "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me."
Sheriff
A close kin to the cowboy is the sheriff. This distorted mode flashes a
badge and brandishes a gun. He says he wants to enforce the law and keep
the peace, and he "don't take nuthin' off nobody." He's the law, and
what he says goes. He doesn't ask if you like it; he just demands that
you do as he says.
Such leaders cannot expect the love, affection, and loyalty of "a
following." They sometimes resort to coercion in order to get
cooperation, but in reality, they get mere compliance, at best, and
rebellion, at worst.
Jesus warned the 'apostles against this distorted leadership model:
"The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials
exercise authority over them. Not so with you." Matthew 20:25
1 Peter 5:2-3 shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight
not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and
not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over
those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
The "lording over" leadership style is of the world and has no place in
spiritual leaders. A leader who has to assert his authority doesn't have
much."
CEO / chairman of the Board
Finally we come to the "CEO" view of leadership. Unfortunately, through
the past 50 years or so the world has been speeding up with more and
more demands on our time and energy. And the men who have taken on the
responsibility to shepherd the flock feel the same strain as the rest of
us do.
With all the family, business, and civic responsibilities clamoring for
their attention there has been a neglect of shepherding opportunities to
the point that fellowship events, care groups, and in-depth personal
discussions have become "fluff" or "touchy-feely" stuff-which, like
quiche, is not palatable to real men.
Being a Shepherd is something that is learned by observing first and
then actually doing. And in our brotherhood over the past 50 years we
have not only suffered a profound misunderstanding of the Shepherding
role and its process, but there have been fuzzy signals sent to the
flock. Even when the sheep cannot consciously put their fin¬gers on the
specific problem, they feel a sense of loss when lead¬ers neglect
opportunities for informal contact with their people.
The distorted CEO model works mostly behind closed, boardroom doors
¬making decisions, tapping gavels, dispatching memos, and announcing
edicts: "It's policy. And that's that!" The proof that the CEO model
doesn't work is in the absence of a following, for this kind of leader
has no flock.
No one comes to such leaders for shepherding, and the troubled and timid
know to avoid them. Their voices are not heard because no one is
lis¬tening. As Jesus said in John 10:5, sheep "will never follow a
stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not
recognize a stranger's voice."
Distorted models of leadership are sometimes decades old and deeply
ingrained. And some good people, conditioned by old, secular styles,
find the biblical shepherd model difficult to accept.
God has provided a guide for spiritual leadership through his Word, and
we must not allow our thinking to be shaped by tra¬dition, management
fads, or by any other humanly conceived model. God has designed a model
¬revealed through Scripture, embodied in Jesus Christ, and passed on to
spiritual leaders of all time. The model is embedded in the very name
"pastor." When today's church leaders follow the shep¬herding style of
nurturing and leadership, they reflect the very heart of God and imitate
the ways of Jesus.
So let’s read Jesus’ job description of Elders found in John 10:1-18
Elders are called to be shepherds!
A shepherd is someone who has a flock. They are not day laborers that
clock in and out. They live with the sheep, protect, feed and cleanse
them. They “smell like sheep.” And our process of appointing elders is
simply acknowledging those who already have a flock.
When we talk of Elders being Shepherds most of us cannot relate. I mean
when was the last time you were in Wal-Mart or Burger King and walked
past a Shepherd. I would venture to say that none of us know about
Ancient world Shepherd - Sheep relationships, the concept just doesn’t
connect with the modern Church.
Even thought the shepherd metaphor may be hard for us to understand in
our 21st Century cyber world we need to try because there is not another
equivalent in our Modern world. Besides, if I drop the shepherd and
flock idea, I would have to tear about two hundred pages out of my
Bible. God keeps pointing shepherds to the pasture to struggle with
sheep.
In Bible times, the shepherds were as common and familiar to those in
the Middle East as telephones and supermarkets are to modern-day
Americans. Almost anywhere in the Bible world, eyes that lifted to gaze
across the landscape would fall upon at least one flock of sheep.
The family often depended upon sheep for survival. A large part of their
diet was milk and cheese. Occasionally, they ate the meat. Their
clothing and tents were made of wool and skins. Their social position
often depended upon the well being of the flock, just as we depend upon
jobs and businesses, cars and houses.
The shepherd metaphor shows up more than five hundred times in
Scripture, across both Old and New Testaments. With¬out question, the
dominant biblical model for spiritual leadership is the shepherd and
flock. If we want to understand the biblical model for leadership, we
have to embrace the concept of shepherd.
God is described as a Shepherd
In the Old Testament world, the care of God himself is pictured in the
shepherd / sheep relation¬ship. Most of us can quote the familiar words,
"The Lord is my shepherd."
But the prophet Isaiah penned this less familiar picture of God, Read
Isaiah 40:11 "He tends his flock like a shep¬herd: He gathers the lambs
in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those
that have young."
What a pleasant picture of our God!
Can't you just envision the awkward and delicate little lamb, ears out
of kilter, and one lanky leg dangling near the shepherd's elbow? This
passage evokes a picture of the shepherd tilting his head so that his
beard nuzzles the lamb's cheek and his resonant voice murmurs gently to
the lamb as they move through the twilight toward the rest and safety of
the sheepfold.
Old Testament readers would have pictured just such a gentle, caring
relationship between God and his people ¬"the sheep of His pasture. "
And although "we all, like sheep, have gone astray," we still have a
"good shepherd" who will love us and lead us gently back to the fold.
Jesus is described as a Shepherd
In the New Testament, Jesus is our shepherd.
Speaking of himself as the loving shep¬herd, Jesus says in Luke 15 that
he leaves the ninety ¬nine in the open country and goes in search of the
lost one. "And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders
and goes home."
He drapes this stinky, wayward sheep around his neck and carries it
home.
Think of it. Jesus left the comforts of heaven and came into our
universe, our pas¬ture, to smell like sheep! Jesus sweated like we do.
He walked our pathways, braved our wolves, faced our temptations, and
shared our struggles.
The Holy One of Israel came in Jesus Christ to be our good shepherd.
In his book, They Smell Like Sheep, Dr. Anderson relates the following
story: One afternoon, he stood on a ridge over¬looking a long, narrow
gorge. Below him, the gorge opened out into rolling grass-covered
pasturelands. A single trail meandered down the length of the gorge
floor, then branched out into dozens of trails when it reached the
grasslands. A group of shepherds strolled down the gorge trail, chatting
with one another, followed by a long, winding river of sheep. At the
forks of the trail, the shepherds shook hands and separated, each taking
a different path as they headed out into the grasslands.
As the shepherds headed their separate ways, the mass of sheep streaming
behind them automatically divided into smaller flocks, each flock
stringing down the branch trail behind its appropriate shep¬herd. When
the various shepherds and their flocks were distanced from each other by
few hundred yards, each shepherd turned to scan his own sheep, noting
that some stray: had been left behind and were wandering if confusion
among the rocks and brush. Then one of the shepherds cupped his hands
around his mouth and called in strange, piercing cry. At his shout, a
couple of stray lambs perked up their ears and bounded toward his voice
Then a second shepherd tilted back his head calling with a distinctly
different sound. A few more strays hurried straight toward him. Each
shepherd, in turn, called Each of the strays, hearing a familiar voice,
knew exactly which shepherd he should run to. "In fact, none of the
wandering sheep seemed to notice any voice but the voice of his own
shepherd."
This is what Jesus meant when he said, "My sheep listen to my voice,"
but "do not recognize a stranger's voice." (John 10:27)
The sheep pick his voice out of a sea of voices and follow it. The
shepherd "calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has
brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow
him because they know his voice."
This is the essence of spiritual leadership: sheep following a shepherd
because they know and trust him. This kind of trust and allegiance can
be gained only one way-by a shepherd touching his sheep, carrying them,
handling them, tending them, feeding them-to the extent that he smells
like them.
When the apostle Peter instructed church leaders on how to lead, he
spoke of Jesus as "the Chief Shepherd." Don’t miss Peter's point. Jesus,
the Chief Shepherd is our model: he is the blueprint, for the way
modern, Christian lead¬ership gets done.
Even contemporary believers instinctively warm to Jesus' comforting
words of sheep and shepherding. Because Jesus laid his life down for us,
he woos us and wins our trust, our affection, and our loyalty.
Good spiritual shepherds today imitate the Chief Shepherd. Like him,
they attract flocks through loving service and authentic relationships.
Like him, they feed and protect their flocks. They know their flocks and
their flocks know them. They are trusted as men who are committed enough
to put their lives on the line, daily, for the precious people they
lead.
The Apostles were called to be Shepherds
After modeling shepherd leadership, Jesus passed the model on to the
apostles. Three times in one brief conversation recorded in John 21,
Jesus charged Peter:
"Feed my lambs," "Take care of my sheep," and, Feed my sheep."
By implication he is saying, "Adopt my spiritual leader¬ship style."
One would find it hard to believe that after three years of watching
Jesus and being coached by him-and now commissioned by him-that these
twelve men would invent new leadership strategies. Jesus had modeled the
shepherd style of leadership, and this is what they used in their lives
and modeled to others.
Both Peter and Paul passed the shepherd model of leadership on to us.
Paul pleaded with the leaders of the church in Ephesus,
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he
bought with his own blood. Acts 20:28
Again Peter wrote,
Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care. eager to serve; not
lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
And when the Chief Shep¬herd appears, you will receive the crown of
glory that will never fade away. 1 Peter 5:2-5
I believe that this shepherd metaphor was passed on to us intentionally!
By the time Peter and Paul call church leaders "shepherds," the shepherd
theme had gathered centuries of significance. Divine meaning had
accumulated across the Bible. Peter and Paul are invoking a whole
theology of spiritual leadership, not merely throwing in a colorful
figure of speech.
The Biblical Shepherd
While some of us may not feel comfortable thinking of certain peo¬ple as
sheep and others as shepherds, our discomfort will likely dis¬appear
when we realize that the shepherding model revolves around the
relationship between the shepherd and his flock.
It is not a figure of strong over weak or "lords" over servants. Quite
the contrary.
The shepherd figure is one of love, service, and openness. Ancient,
Middle-Eastern shepherds lived in the pasture with the flock and were as
much a part of the land as the sheep were. Through a lifetime of shared
experience, shepherds nurtured enduring trust relationships with their
sheep.
When a tiny lamb was born into the wilderness world, the shepherd took
the trembling newborn into his hands, warming it and caressing it. Among
the first sensations felt by the shivering lamb was the tender hands of
the shepherd. The gentle voice of the shepherd was one of the first
sounds to awaken the lamb's del¬icate eardrums.
The shepherd lived with the lambs for their entire lives-pro¬tecting
them, petting them, feeding and watering them, and leading them to the
freshest pools and the most luxuriant pas¬tures, day and night, year in
and year out. So by the time the lamb grew to "ewe-hood" or "ram-hood,"
it naturally associated the touch of the shepherd's hands and the sound
of the shepherd's voice with "green pastures" and "still waters," with
safety, security, love, and trust.
Each sheep came to rely on the shepherd and to know his voice and his
alone. They followed him and no one else. Of course, the lambs
understood clearly who was in charge. Occasionally, the shepherd might
tap an unruly lamb on the ear with a shepherd's crook. But this was a
love tap, embraced in an enfolding circle of relationship. The shepherd
smelled like sheep!
When the day's grazing was done and night was approaching, the shepherd
would gather the sheep together and lead them into a protective fold.
Some were crude, makeshift circles of brush, stick, and rocks, forming
barricades four or five feet high-safe little fortresses in the
wilderness. Others were limestone caves in the hillsides. But each
circle is incomplete, broken at one place to form an opening into the
fold. Beside this portal the shepherd would take his place as he
gathered his flock into the fold for the night, at times physically
becoming the gate.
Part of the nighttime ritual was the gentle inspection of each,
individual Iamb. One by one, each lamb would come under the shepherd's
rod for review. Each would feel the shepherd's hands and hear his voice
speaking its name.
With the whole flock examined and bedded down, finally, the shepherd
himself would lie down, stretching his body across the opening. So, the
shepherd literally, physically became the door! His body kept the sheep
in and the dangers of the night out. No sheep could wander into danger
because the shepherd's body held them in.
Wolves and robbers could enter to harm the flock only over the dead body
of the shep¬herd. Some claim that, even today, morning will occasionally
find scat¬tered sheep, without a shepherd. Upon investigation, a
bleeding, battle-worn shep¬herd will often be found somewhere
nearby-sometimes even a dead one. The shepherd would literally lay "down
his life for the sheep."
What a compelling and fitting model for leadership. No wonder the
shepherd metaphor is a constant theme of the Bible.
The Contemporary Shepherd
A shepherd is someone who has a flock, As obvious as that may sound, it
is frequently overlooked. Flocks naturally gather around food,
protection, affection, touch, and voice. Biblical shepherds are those
who live among the sheep; serve the sheep; feed, water, and protect the
sheep; touch and talk to the sheep-even lay down their lives for the
sheep. Biblical shepherds smell like sheep.
Church leaders who shepherd well will foster congregational
infrastructures that leave them plenty of time and opportunity for flock
building. A good deal of their leadership will be hands-on and
personal-for this is how flocks are formed.
The shepherd and flock relationship powerfully implies at least three
qualities of spiritual leadership:
Relationships Require Availability
Shepherding sheep requires availability. Sheep will flock to a Shepherd
that has time for them. Time to listen to their victories and their
struggles. They truly fulfill Romans 12:15 Rejoice with those who
rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
They can do this because they have been available enough to know what is
truly happening in the lives of their flock.
Relationships Require Commitment
Shepherding sheep requires a long-term, costly commitment of self, time,
and energy and the building of open, authentic rela¬tionships.
Shepherding is no easy task.
Jesus, the "Chief Shep¬herd," exemplified this commitment in his
relationship with the Twelve. Jesus chose them so that "they might be
with him," and for three years, they went everywhere he went. They went
with him to weddings, temples, villages, fields, synagogues, and
sick¬rooms. They even went fishing together.
Jesus changed them by his touch. He taught them, ate with them, and
protected them. He talked with them until they began to hear his voice
way down in their souls. Eventually, people could tell by being around
them that "they had been with Jesus."
Relationships Require Trust
Sheep follow their shepherd "because they know his voice." Through hours
and days and weeks and years spent with their shepherd, sheep come to
know from experience that they can trust him. Trust is earned, not
demanded, and it is built over time.
We trust Jesus because he keeps his promise to be with us to the end of
the world. When we first come to him as trembling, newborn lambs, he
caresses us in his gentle, firm hands. His love warms us, protects us,
and feeds us. His spirit waters us, and he continually talks to us. He
never abandons us or misleads us. We trust him because he is
trustworthy.
So it is with modern-day shepherds. Men who would lead a flock must earn
the trust of the sheep. When the lives of leaders are invested in the
lives of sheep, the sheep come to know and trust their voices. This is
what Jesus meant when he said that a shepherd's sheep "follow him
because they know his voice."
Not only do the sheep know the shep¬herd, but the shepherd also knows
the sheep-intimately. "He calls his own sheep by name."
Biblical leaders know faces and names-and personal stories. Because the
shepherd knows and serves them all, they trust him, and he "leads them
out."
Being placed in a leadership position does not guarantee a following,
but a trail of sheep will usually follow the voice of a trusted
shepherd.
|
