In the latest issue of “Leadership” magazine, American mega-church pastor Andy Stanley suggests that we should stop referring to pastors as “shepherds” because most modern (Western) pastors have never seen a flock of sheep and have no clue how to tend, feed, or lead four-legged sheep. Stanley goes on to say: “That word (shepherding) needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture He could point to.” He believes that if Jesus walked our streets today, He would use imagery that modern listeners would understand and relate to—perhaps athletic or corporate imagery. What then should we do with the words of Jesus about sheep and shepherds? According to Stanley, “we have to identify the principle . . . that the leader is responsible for the care of the people he’s been given. To care for and equip the people in the organization to follow Jesus. But when we take the literal illustration and bring it into our culture, then people can make it anything they want because nobody knows much about it.”
The fact that so few modern pastors in the west understand sheep and shepherds may be one reason why the “Shepherding Movement” of the 70s went so far off course. Real shepherds would have known that Jesus did not expect a shepherd to micro-manage every decision of every sheep in the flock.
