Over the course of my thirteen years as a pastor at Harvest, it’s been my privilege to talk with many young men and women who were contemplating a career in ministry. Sadly, I found myself discouraging around 75% of them from moving forward because I was alarmed at the self-centeredness with which they described their sense of calling.
Many of them had been greatly impressed with pastoral figures in their own lives, and their minds were filled with dreams of many others in the future being just as impressed by them. They relished the idea of speaking for 30 minutes to a captive audience week after week. They spoke about the deep satisfaction they believed they would get out of the work. But in all their words I did not hear much about their desire to take care of others. The language in this chapter put words to what I felt was wrong about many of these would-be ministers – they did not have the shepherd’s heart – at least not as far as I could tell.
Perhaps because many of them had not experienced the deep provision of God in their own lives – or perhaps more accurately, they had not acknowledged it – their call to ministry was not oriented around becoming providers for others. Because they had not seen the wonderful provision of God in their own lives, they were still needy and wanted to do ministry to meet their own needs and not those of the sheep.
When we were children and someone insulted us, we’d often respond, “It takes one to know one.� I suppose I am so aware of absence of a shepherd’s heart in others because so many days I struggle to find it in myself. I sometimes feel like a professional Christian. I need a shepherd’s heart too.
ShepherdLeader.com
A safe place for shepherds to reflect together.