shepherding the shepherd
from PreachingToday.com
Ordinary Pastors
There they are—our forefathers, our kind of people. Ordinary, plain, common. And no matter how good our education, the secret to gospel ministry has never been something we learned in school.
Ordinary People
I’m often struck by how ordinary church people are. That’s not a put-down. I admire the ingenuity of our disguises.
Foundational Words
We work as subcontractors, you might say, at a construction site. Maybe that would be clearer if someone stretched a chain-link fence around the church property and required everyone arriving on Sundays to wear yellow hard hats.
The Oof of It
Picture a dad stretched out on the living room floor right after dinner, eyes closed, hands behind his head, just relaxing. Then out of nowhere, his 7-year-old runs in and jumps on his stomach. That’s what it feels like when someone in our church attacks us. It’s not just their attacks or sudden departure that hurts, but how unsuspecting and vulnerable we were. The oof of it!
Mercy Me
Some hurts can be forgotten but others cannot and should not be stuffed down. Wounds fester and lead to grudges, a besetting sin of pastors. Instead, Jesus tells us how to leverage even the hatred of enemies to kingdom advantage.
A Kingdom Paradox
It’s still hard for the Lord’s disciples, us included, to grasp that only those who come to Jesus with their spiritual pockets turned out have access to the treasures of the kingdom, that only those starving for a crumb of righteousness are invited to a seat at the Lord’s banquet, that only those who grieve over the world’s never-ending sin and who have wept at too many graves will laugh for joy when we see the end of the story, when “everything sad is coming untrue.”