The imagery of the title is so graphic I wish I had thought of it. Instead the question comes from “Hearing God,” a book by Dallas Willard, in a section dealing with Christian leadership.
My mind’s eye immediately went to scenes witnessed during a trip to Ireland and England. In Ireland we were privileged to watch Border Collies drive sheep in from the hills where they had been free grazing for weeks. In England we saw the dogs drive flocks along narrow country roads.
Each time the collies were like perpetual motion darting here and there, nipping at heels of dawdling animals, positioning themselves to keep a wayward sheep from drifting from the flock. The dogs never led the flock. They busied themselves on the edges to keep the flock together.
Willard observes that some Christian leaders (talking mostly about paid church employees but not exclusively) work tirelessly to keep the church flock together but do so through manipulation and control to drive the church and its members in a particular direction.
In doing so, these leaders often act like sheepdogs.
That kind of leadership may be in step with secular practices but is it what God outlines for His Church? Can resorting to manipulation, power, control and other human traits be clothed with spiritual terminology and accepted in the kingdom of God?
Willard contends Christian leaders must have confidence in the Word of the Great Shepherd. They must be willing to walk in front of their spiritual flock voicing the Word of God and trust the sheep to follow.
The Shepherd’s voice
In John 10:27, Jesus said, “My sheep listen to My voice, I know them and they follow Me.” That verse is part of a larger treatment on the relationship of the sheep to their shepherd in John 10 where Jesus teaches that sheep will only respond to the voice of their shepherd. They will not follow the voice of a stranger.
If the church leader’s message is the Word of God, the Bible teaches those who belong to God will recognize it and follow. But if the message spoken by the church leader is not the Word of God, members will not respond.
Following God’s Word
Shepherd-like church leaders would have it no other way. The goal is not for church members to follow a pastor or a deacon or a Woman’s Missionary Union leader. The goal is for all members to follow the Word of the Great Shepherd together.
Hopefully, that word comes through the pastor most of the time. But the Bible gives numerous examples where someone other than the anointed leader spoke God’s counsel in a particular situation. Remember the advice Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, offered him in Exodus 18?
Shepherd-leaders follow the directive the apostle Peter offered when he wrote, “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it as with the strength God provides so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11).
Again the goal is to trust the Word of the Great Shepherd to govern and guide the people of God no matter whom God uses to speak His message. That leaves no room for one to brag about “my church,” “my ministry,” “my abilities” or “my victory” since all the glory goes to God.
Still that goal requires a level of trust between members of the family of God that is sometimes hard to find. One prominent Christian leader wrote, “A redemptive teaching relationship is bilateral. … The teacher has to learn from his students. … Teachers and students are fellowmen who together are searching for what is true, meaningful and valid.”
Said more simply, ministry is not supposed to be a one-way street. Leadership is not lording over the faith of another (being a sheepdog) but helping one in their joy (being a shepherd) — see 2 Corinthians 1:24.
Often we read the apostle Paul’s admonition that “anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor” as meaning ministers are to be materially supported by those receiving instruction. That is true but a closer reading broadens the verse’s implications.
The word “share” comes from the Greek word meaning “fellowship.” It denotes mutual participation in a cause. The biblical concept is for a team spirit to emerge between teachers and learners in a Christian congregation. In a real sense the apostle Paul says we are all teachers of one another and we are all learners from one another.
Listen and learn
If we are to be shepherds to one another instead of sheepdogs nipping at one another we must listen and learn from one another as together we seek to hear the voice of the Great Shepherd.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the famous 19th century English Baptist pastor, once said to his students, “For my part I should loathe to be the pastor of a people who have nothing to say, or who, if they do say anything, might as well be quiet for the pastor is Lord Paramount and they are mere laymen and nobodies. I would sooner be the leader of six free men whose enthusiastic love is my only power over them, than play the director to a score of enslaved nations.”
He closed that lecture by saying, “Our system was never intended to promote the glory of priests and pastors but it is calculated to educate manly Christians who will not take their faith at second-hand.”
The world, the churches, the kingdom of God does not need more sheepdogs. What is needed is more shepherds.
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