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
