Friday, February 03, 2012

Sheep Want Good Food!!!


The people of God will follow the pastor who feeds them the Word of God. That isn’t to say that they won’t balk once in a while. They can make the pastor’s life a living hell. But week in and week out, year in and year out, Christians will not cut themselves off from the one who sets their spiritual table. Even the delinquent son has an uncanny sense of when dinner’s on, and he knows he will not be refused.

While the people of God want desperately to flock to the spiritual food of the Word of God, pastors flock to seminars on how to run church boards, administrate programs and raise up volunteers. They come home with straw to feed their people. Then they wonder why their parishioners are not energized by their new social-scientifically correct leadership methods for manipulating them. Cows don’t like being herded into vaccination chutes. People don’t either.

David Hansen, The Art of Pastoring: Ministry Without All The Answers (IVP), pp. 153-54