Protected species?

[Jamie]

I like your emphasis here on the shepherd’s responsibility to be proactive and responsible, not passive.
An interesting, ironical story: My family and I recently visited Yellowstone, where wolves are a “protected species.� I wonder if this is true in some churches also.
I recently ran across a great quote from the great Irish shepherd, St. Patrick. In his *Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus,* he lambasts the tyrant slave-trader Coroticus, who has killed and enslaved some of his recent converts: “Ravenous wolves have gulped down the Lord’s own flock which was flourishing in Ireland and the whole church cries out and laments for its sons and daughters.� (cited in *Christianity and the Celts,* by Ted Olsen, IVP: 2003, p. 74)