Shepherd, Pastor or Minister?

American preacher Scott Hoezee wrote:

“Perhaps the imagery of the Good Shepherd seems outdated, but has humanity in the modern world really outgrown its need for someone to love us fiercely and forever, the way only a truly good shepherd can? In our quiet and secret moments, we yearn for someone stronger and wiser to take care of us. Those of us who were raised in solid and good homes carry around with us the memory of how delicious it was to be tucked into our cosy beds at night without worries that would threaten our rest. Kids go to bed without fretting about whether the forecasted heavy weather will turn violent, or whether the bills can be paid. No, as children we wriggled drowsily in our beds awash in the knowledge that someone else was in charge and so we happily allowed ourselves to slip over the edge of slumber the way only a child can, with literally no cares to make our minds too busy to sleep.

We adults carry that memory in our sub-conscious and we yearn for something like it again. Indeed, we pine for it even more acutely because now we know what it is like to live without that security. Now we know what it's like to wait for results from the pathology lab. Now we know what it's like to watch a deadly storm roar ever closer on the TV. Now maybe we've gone through the pain of having to bid first grandparents and then parents and finally even friends a final goodbye.”

So, is the imagery of the Good Shepherd outdated?

During the time I spent on exchange ministry in America, I had to get used to being called “Pastor”. Pastor is a term frequently used there as a synonym, an alternative, for “minister”. So, I got used to being introduced as “This is David Gray our exchange pastor from England”.

Pastor is not a term much used in British Methodism. (Though other denominations in this country such as the Baptists and Pentecostals, use the word more frequently.) The word comes from the Latin word for shepherd and Chambers’ Dictionary tells us that a “Pastor is a person who has care of a flock or of a congregation; a shepherd; a member of the clergy;”

With the reading from John’s Gospel today, it’s easy to see where the term “Pastor” came from and how it came to be used for a minister. From time to time I describe people in the congregations I serve as “my flock”. And in Methodist terms I am the minister in “pastoral charge”.

So why don’t we use the term “pastor”? I think it’s because seems to limit what a minister does to one thing – care of the flock – though that’s important. And, because it suggests that a pastor is trying to be a Good Shepherd like Jesus. Or at least what Jesus says in John 10. But then we read what Jesus says:

11 I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives up his life for his sheep. 12 Hired workers are not like the shepherd. They don’t own the sheep, and when they see a wolf coming, they run off and leave the sheep. Then the wolf attacks and scatters the flock. 13 Hired workers run away because they don’t care about the sheep.

Is that a model we can follow? How many ministers / pastors give up their lives for the sheep, the congregations they serve? How many run away?
The we are told by Jesus

14 I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and they know me.

How many ministers truly know their flocks? And I don’t mean in a judgmental sense. I mean knowing about their worries and concerns? Their hopes and dreams? Their joys and sadness?

No minister / pastor can truly aspire to be a shepherd to the flock in the way Jesus is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good model to aspire to and that ministers shouldn’t try to be Good Shepherds as afar as is humanly possible.

One of the challenges for me during the lockdown is in trying to find ways in which I can be the pastor. And I’ve been grateful to hear from many of you to say that you appreciate the services, the odd phone call, card or letter from me. As well as praying for you, that’s pretty much all I can do at present.

But what I’m also hearing back at present is how many of you are keeping in touch with one another and how (in our larger churches particularly) the “pastoral leaders” are very good at keeping in touch with their pastoral groups. (In the smaller churches, we tend not to have pastoral groups as such, everyone just mucks in as it were – though we still have a duty under the Methodist system to think in this way.)

The pastoral leaders are filling a role that has long been recognised in the Methodist Church. I’m reading a book at present by Gary Best called “The cradle of Methodism”. It is a history of John Wesley’s New Room in Bristol. And in the early days of Methodism Wesley recognised the importance of pastoral groups to ensure he ongoing welfare of members of the groups.

Over the years the terminology has changed – the groups were originally “bands”, they’ve been called “classes” and as I say in more recent times “pastoral groups”. But whatever the title, broadly speaking, they serve the same function. Caring for one another.

I can’t claim to be a Good Shepherd like Jesus, I don’t claim to model myself on John Wesley either! But the care of the flock, whether through friendships, pastoral visitors or ministers, is such an important part of our love for one another. No more so than at present. We are all pastors.

Like you no doubt, I sometimes think it would be easier being a child again with no cares. I do worry. I do wonder when the lockdown will end and wonder how and when we can get back to normality. But for now, the sense of Jesus Christ our Risen Saviour, Jesus the Good Shepherd, guarding us, guiding us and keeping us, during these uncertain times, gives me comfort. I hope it does too.