One and the Whole

[phargrove]

This meditation illustrated to me the tension of shepherding as it relates to the pastoral role. There has been a tenor of focus on the shepherd knowing the sheep. And the emphasis throughout the readings focuses more on individual sheep. With Think Flock, there is a shift to the necessity of thinking about the larger picture of the herd and its needs. To be sure, this is not an either / or proposition (“While herders intimately are for each of their animals, they are equally preoccupied with the status of the whole herd�). However, it does represent a shift in mindset. I wonder how this might translate to the pastoral task as well.

Laniak notes, “At a certain threshold size and during specific seasons, some shepherds spend more time managing the affairs of a flock than personally caring for them.� Management is crucial in allocating resources for the collective whole. While doing this, the owners have to depend on trusted field shepherds for day-to-day animal husbandry. I wonder if for Senior Pastors of larger, multi-staff churches this is a similar parallel. Perhaps the Associate Pastors and other ministry leaders (whether ordained or not) are the “trusted field shepherds� that do more of the individual care. In large herds, Laniak describes levels of administrative heads, chief contractors, and field shepherds. (Interestingly, all involved still preferred the term shepherd – to me, a “one body, many parts� perspective.)

David is described in Ezekiel 34 as the prince (nagid, the chief herd contractor) wherein in would occupy roles of both field shepherd and shepherd king. Evidently, God wanted him to exercise his herder’s heart in the management of a nation. There is a both / and to shepherding of individual care and strategic management.

This reality helps clear some underbrush to the shepherding task for me. In larger ministry contexts, the reality of administrative layering (which can seem less like a pure sense of shepherding) with committee meetings, strategic planning, vision, mission, values discussions, planning, and the more mundane but necessary work of returning emails, phone calls, and submitting various reports are all part of the shepherding process. There was the term shift from shepherd to rancher. However, this does not mean that even the rancher does not spend some time with the flock and individual sheep. Changing roles can be difficult and unwanted by some pastors.

In my mind, there are two factors here. One is determining the “threshold size� of a flock that makes one move from a shepherd to more of a rancher role. There is a natural and obvious level of proportion and size that means one cannot know intimately an infinite number of people. There is a cap. This is true in our personal relationships as well as relationships in the church. I have heard it said that a person has the capacity for only seven close relationships – that like Leggos when we are “attached� with other people in relationship, seven is the maximum number in which we can function with intimacy. While I am not sure of that number of congregants that moves one from more of an individual sheep orientation to that of strategist and management, as the church grows, it becomes a necessity.
The second dynamic is one of self-knowledge. The flock size one is called to shepherd may very well flow out of one’s sense of gifts, skills, and passions. If being primarily a manager (“rancher�) is not where gains energy and senses his or her time and energy is better used in a smaller ministry context, then why not move that way? This is assuming that one has spent considerable time in seeking God’s will in the matter, for it is God’s prerogative to call us into ministry contexts that might not be from our perspective the best fit with our natural inclinations and desires.