Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals: Welcome. The following message is a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is known for ministries such as the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, as well as nationally syndicated radio programs, like the Bible Study Hour, Every Last Word, and Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. Our purpose is to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Thank you for listening.

Guest (Male): Before I get into the subject matter proper, I did want to let you know that we've been working on some very important developments at Westminster Seminary that I think will be of interest to you and probably to your people. We've gotten very, very tired of people saying that Westminster Seminary is not very practical. And so we thought that one of the things we might do is launch a website that would be called, yeah, that would be called meharmony.com.

Now the idea, of course, the idea is not to match people, men and women, but to match someone with the right church. And so we developed a series of matchability factors that we hope will help people to make those decisions. And here's just a couple of the matchability factors. First of all, the worship thermometer.

Do you like your worship services exciting and vibrant, warm? Or do you prefer a service that is, shall we say, more contemplative, quieter, dull? Our worship thermometer matches the worship temperature between you and potential matches so that you don't have to be embarrassed by walking out of a service again.

You don't want things too warm or too cold. You want things just right. That's right. Now, I'll skip to the, I think one of the most important ones, and this is the patented sermon chronometer. The sermon chronometer. After all, you know how long you would like the sermon to be. You want no more than 15 minutes? Fine. We have analyzed sermons posted on church websites and developed a database, the sermon chronometer, through which you can match your desired sermon length with dozens of preachers in your geographical area.

Why sit through another sermon looking at your watch? We've already done that for you. After all, it's not always what the preacher says. It's how long he takes to say it. So, I don't know if that's going to go over or not, but my interest in this area of shepherding actually developed as I was trying to figure out what to do my doctoral work in.

I had been involved in a church plant right out of seminary. And at that church plant, I noticed that it had grown nicely, but then it hit a statistical plateau. And then I went to a church revitalization project, in which I have just completed 27 years. And I also noticed the same thing there that we began to build the church and the church began to grow numerically. But after a certain period of time, there was a statistical plateau.

And what came to mind to me was that instead of doing a project on evangelism, I wanted to do something on this idea of church health, how to, how to make sure that the sheep stay. Because if they're coming in the front doors and going out the back doors, we've got a problem. And I think one of the primary reasons that that is a problem is because many of our churches are not being engaged in the process of shepherding their sheep, providing proper pastoral care.

And so I launched into this, into this project and discovered quickly that the metaphor of shepherd is one that is very, very important in Scripture. And what my goal is going to be for you this afternoon, if you're going to be a faithful shepherd, you need to know how to care for the sheep. You need to be sure that you're able to bring together those elders and leaders who are called to take care of the sheep.

So what we're going to be looking at are seven effective characteristics, seven essential elements of an effective shepherding plan, okay? So if you have, if you're missing one of these, you're sunk. And as we go through, we're going to be looking at there are a couple of them that are usually missing. And so, if you, you may have a shepherding plan in your church. If you do, please use these seven elements to check it out. And if you're hoping to establish a shepherding plan in your church, please note that these are required.

So let me pray as we start. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this conference. Thank you for this afternoon. I pray that you would use this time in the lives of each one of us here to remind us of the importance of this ministry, that you might be glorified, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

By the way, in writing the book, The Shepherd Leader, I visited a sheep farm out in Lancaster County where we were, where we were raised. Not on the sheep farm, but we were raised in Lancaster County. And I'd always drive past the sheep farm and admire all these beautiful sheep. And so as I was writing the book, I thought, I should go in and talk to those people and learn about sheep. So I drove in and it turned out that one of the owners was one of our old high school agriculture teachers, where we grew up there was an agriculture department, and he was in charge of that.

And got to ask some questions about, about shepherding, which are found throughout the course of the book, The Shepherd Leader. When the book was completed, I decided to go back and visit them and give them a couple of copies with Thanksgiving. And as I went in and I looked around, and I, I noticed there weren't any sheep anymore. And I said, by the way, there were just goats. Just goats.

And, and so I, I said, where are the sheep? They said, oh, we only have goats now. The sheep are too hard to take care of. So let that be a lesson to you that what we're, what we're about here is, is very challenging indeed. And I should also mention that just this past Saturday, I went back to the Nicks Besser Sheep Farm, which means none better, because they're auctioning the whole thing. They're getting out of even goats altogether. And we saw them sell the rocky 18 acres and the house, and they sold the sheep, the goats that were left as well. So it was kind of a sad, a sad day. But I still have my hat that says Nicks Besser livestock that I wear proudly wherever I go.

Seven elements of an effective shepherding plan. And the overarching verse that comes to my mind is in Psalm 78, verses 71 and 72. He's talking about David as the shepherd king. And actually, I'll bring, I'll start at verse 70. "He also chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds, from the care of the ewes with suckling lambs, he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them with his skillful hands."

I think there you see the whole package. He shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them with his skillful hands. And if there's a verse closely related to that, it would be Acts 20:28 that Harry referred to earlier. "Watch out for yourselves and for the flock." We have to have a holistic picture of the shepherding ministry, which starts, of course, with ourselves being in submission and obedient to our great shepherd and king.

So, into the seven elements of an effective shepherding plan. First of all, it has to be biblical. It has to be biblical. I mean, we should be doing nothing that is not biblical. And I don't want to spend too terribly much time on this, and hopefully I'm preaching to the choir here a little bit, but you do understand that in God's covenant relationship with his people, he describes himself as the shepherd of his flock, and the people as his sheep. And that's manifested very beautifully in that great, everybody's favorite Psalm, Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want," which talks about the comprehensive care that God provides for his, for his covenant people.

But as you move on and you think about God's call to leadership, even in the Old Testament, those who were called to leadership were identified as, as shepherds. In fact, many of them were shepherds before they were called to be leaders of God's people, right? What did David do before he was called to be the king? He took care of sheep. What did Moses do before he was called upon to lead God's people? Well, in Exodus chapter 3, we see him shepherding his father-in-law's sheep. He was a very good son-in-law, taking care of them, for sure.

But then they were called upon to care for God's people. And I believe, and I'm convinced that there are a lot of things you can learn about caring for people by observing sheep. That's one of the reasons I went to the Nicks Besser farm, and I often thought that in our MDiv level and maybe on our Doctor of Ministry program as well, we should actually spend a day out at a sheep farm and observe sheep and see how crazy and wacky they really are.

But as you come and you study the shepherds of Old Testament Israel, you also discover that the skills that they had learned and some of the tools that they had learned were instrumental in what they were called to do. So when Moses was called to lead God's people, most of that which he was able to do surrounded his use of that staff, remember? It was the staff that struck the river and turned it to blood. It was the staff that was held high above his head while Joshua battled the Amalekites.

And unfortunately, though, it was also that staff that got him into trouble. And as you look, you know, as you look at the shepherds of the Old Testament, they're they're faulty. They're flawed. And so it was even with Moses, so that, remember the first time the Israelites needed water, what did Moses do? He struck the rock. Now, when you move a few chapters over into the book of, or Numbers rather, you see that they needed water again, and God told them, "Speak to the rock." But what did Moses do? He struck the rock. An act of insubordination. One which required that the penalty of him not being able to go into the promised land.

Thus signifying who the true shepherd of Israel was. David had a similar problem. Without going into the whole story, you know that he abused the sheep. And he was punished for that. And did you ever think about the story that Nathan used to go and speak to David? What was that story? It was about, it was about sheep. Nathan came to David and said, oh, by the way, I just want you to know that you've got some bad stuff going on here. And David said, what is it?

This guy has all these sheep. This other guy had just one little sheep. The guy with all the sheep took the one little sheep. And what was David's response? He was a shepherd at heart, and so he was outraged. And Nathan said, "You are the man." That imagery is, is just throughout the entire Bible. But one exercise I'd encourage you to do as a group of leaders in your church, one of the texts that terrifies, as you know, is Ezekiel 34. It talks about God's indictment against the shepherds of Israel.

I'd encourage you to take a look at that text together as a, as a group of leaders sometime. It would really be a great thing to do on an elders retreat or an officers retreat. And be sure you do the whole chapter, because the first part is very depressing. But then you get to the fact that God indeed is the ultimate shepherd with the promise of the son of David, the shepherd king to come.

But as you know, the consummate ultimate shepherd is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes into the world and says, "I am the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, they know me and they, they follow me." They are completely secure. If you think about all the functions that a shepherd provides, the Lord Jesus Christ provides all of those functions perfectly. They're perfectly secure in him. They're perfectly fed in him. They're perfectly led in him. And they know one another. The shepherd knows the sheep and the sheep know the shepherd. All that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And talk about giving it up for your sheep. Jesus Christ gave up his life for his sheep as the Lamb of God. And for an ancient near Eastern flock, the death of the shepherd would ordinarily be a pretty bad thing, don't you think? No shepherd. But Jesus died, he says in John 10, he laid down his life and he took it up again, so that he could now be the risen savior for his sheep forever.

But then you ask the question, well, what about, what happens next? What about the ongoing shepherding life of the church? How are the people of God to be cared for? Well, I believe that question is answered quite clearly in the New Testament. I think the question is answered by the text we looked at in Acts chapter 20 with, with Harry earlier. So remember he meets with the Ephesian elders, and he, he goes through all that historic prologue with them, describing his ministry again around them.

But when he gets down to the imperative, there's all this indicative description, he gets down to the imperative, what is the bottom line? He says, "Watch out for yourselves and for the flock." That's what Paul has in mind. Watch out for yourselves and for the flock. And who's he talking to? Who's responsible to do this? It is the elders of the church, the plurality of the elders of the church.

But then if you move on and you ask yourself the question, well, where else do we see this exemplified? And one of my favorite texts is 1 Peter chapter 5, where you have the first among the apostles, if you want to look at this for a moment, in verses 1 and following. Peter says, "Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God, not for sorted gain, but with eagerness, not yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock."

And so you see that there's a continuity between Peter and these ongoing elders. Well, first of all, say there's a discontinuity. He identifies himself, he gives us his apostolic credentials in saying that he is a witness of the sufferings of Christ. But he also identifies a continuity with the ongoing leadership of the church in describing himself as a fellow elder, a sum presbyteros. How is the ongoing care of the flock going to happen? It's not going to be happening through continuing apostles, it's going to be happening through the continuity of the leadership of elders as they move forward.

And in that text, you see so many good things. Things to be avoided and things to be affirmed. Not under compulsion, but voluntarily. Again, the heart has to be right. According to the will of God, not for sorted gain. With eagerness. Eagerness, eager to take care of the sheep. Not lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. Now, something I also encourage you to do when you look at that Ezekiel 34 passage is to compare it and contrast it with this text.

Because in Ezekiel 34, you see the opposite going on, but here you see exactly what's supposed to mark the lives of, of elders who lead the flock. And I've also asked myself the question, why, why does Peter use this terminology here? Why of the one imperative that he uses here, does he use the word shepherd? I think it goes back to John 21. And you know the story. I don't have time to go into much detail.

But you know that Peter and several of the disciples high tailed it and went back to hide, to Galilee, and they went fishing, right? And what did they catch? They caught nothing. The sun comes up, shadowy figure on the shore. The shadowy figure cries out, "Throw your nets to the right hand side." You got to love John. John gives you these kinds of details that other Gospel writers don't. He threw it on the right hand side of the boat. So what happens? All the fish in that part of the Sea of Galilee run in there. And the nets begin to break. John says, "It's the Lord." And what does Peter do? He jumps into the water, he races into shore, leaving John and the other disciples with this big net full of fish.

And some commentators have observed, and I think it's true, that John understands but Peter acts. John understands and Peter acts. And so, off to the shore they go, breakfast is ready. After breakfast, the question. "Peter, do you love me more than these?" And lots of ink has been spilled over what the "these" might be. "Do you love me more than these disciples? Do you love me more than this, this vocation?"

Peter responds, "You know I love you." Without getting too technical, you know that there are different words used, Jesus' word. "Do you agapaō, do you love me?" And Peter says, "I phileō you, I love you that way." And Jesus then asks again. Peter responds again. Third time Jesus condescends to Peter's use of terminology. And Peter gets a little upset.

But my point here is this. In every instance, in response to Peter's affirmation of love, Jesus' response is in terms of, "Take care of the sheep. Feed my lambs. Take care of the sheep." He could have used any combination of things. He could have said, "Make disciples." He could have said, "Preach the Gospel." "Take care of me." But in all three instances, he uses the term, "Take care of my sheep."

So, I want to persuade you and encourage you that this is very, very important. This is part of the heart of what we do as leaders. If you are a pastor, pastor is from the Latin word for shepherd. That's right. In case you didn't know. I know that was a long time on the first element of an effective shepherding plan, but if you don't get that, you're not going to be able to persuade anybody that it's important. The second thing is that it has to be systematic. To have a shepherding plan, there, you must be systematic. That means you have to have a plan. Richard Baxter in his work, The Reformed Pastor, as you know, the first part of the book is based on, "Watch out for yourselves." The second part of the book is, is based on, "and all the flock." All right?

He had a plan to care for the flock there in Kidderminster. And it's, it was something that worked out for him in that particular place, in that particular time, in that particular culture. And for us, we have to figure out a way that we're going to be able to engage and be in contact regularly with the sheep. So I would ask you, what is your idea of an effective shepherding plan when it comes to a plan? Well, sometimes leaders can get all excited and they can say, "Well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to visit every family in their homes twice a year."

How do you feel about that? That's a pretty tough, that's a pretty tough task, isn't it? That's, that's a lot. And what happens if, if a too aggressive plan is put into place? What happens is that after a month or two, the people begin to see their elders in the, in the church, and they say, "Oh, I thought you were supposed to get together with, oh, oh, yeah." And it doesn't happen. What happens, what happens with the leaders is that they feel guilty, and the congregation feels frustrated. You got to be careful because the next time the pastor gets up and says, we're going to do this or that, might be a little bit of skepticism there.

But even, even Baxter was concerned that his plan was not frequent enough. Here's something from The Reformed Pastor. He said, "Alas, how small a matter it is to speak to a man only once in a year, and that so cursorily as we might be forced to do in comparison with what their necessities require. Yet we are in hope of some fruit of this much, but how much more might it be if we could but speak to them once a quarter, and do the work more fully and deliberately."

This is the reason that I advocate the use of that modern invention, the telephone. What the telephone enables you to do is to have a more frequent contact with the sheep, which is very, very important. So that when that time comes that there is a, well, let me ask you this. When do most people hear from their elders? Ordinarily, when do they hear from their elders? If there's a discipline problem, or if they want money.

So you might, you might have heard that we're starting this building project and we really need your, really, you know, a pledge Sunday is coming up. We'd really appreciate it if you would, if you would do that. No, we're going to be less effective if our contacts are less frequent. And in terms of discipline, how effective is our discipline going to be if we're, if the relational capital we have with people is only based on an annual visit?

I'm not saying visitation in the home is not good. I think actually, ideally, a phone conversation with a visit in the home is going to be effective because it's good to see how people interact. But I think you can imagine what it's like. Some of you have been on these pastoral calls. You go into, you go into the, you go into the house and, and there's Dad and Mom and Sally and Billy, and they're seated really nicely, looking really nice. And there's the lemon bars and the, the coffee there. And, so you say, "Sally and Billy, how are you doing?" "Fine. Just doing fine." "And how, how's everything going here?" "Everything's going well." And then the pastor says, or excuse me, the, the member says, "Oh, by the way, Pastor, we just wanted to know, we really love your preaching." Perfect pastoral visit. Now you can go, you can go home.

I'm not saying that, but if you don't have relational capital built up over a period of time, you're not going to have the relational capital you need to address the difficult things. Christian Reformed Church indicated this, for example, "The best time to reclaim disaffected members is within 6 to 8 weeks. During this time, potential dropouts are in fact waiting for the church to pay attention to them so that they can talk about whatever's bothering them. After this initial two-month period, it's more difficult to reinvolve such members."

So, first of all, are you in a position to notice if they're absent? And then do you have the relational capital to, to engage them? It's much easier to engage them if you have been talking to them on a regular basis. And don't, uh, don't diminish the value of, of a phone call if it's designed for someone's good. We have a great dentist. His name is Dr. Markowitz. And after I go to the dentist, I don't know, maybe you have this experience as well. After I go to the dentist, at night, the phone rings and Barb says, "It's for you." By the way, it's my lovely wife Barb here. Came with me.

And, uh, so I, hello. And it's Dr. Markowitz. He says, "Hey, Tim, just want to know how you're doing. You're doing fine. If you're doing well, that's good. Here's my cell number in case, uh, I you can help, I can help you." 45 seconds. And I hang up the phone and I say, "Honey, guess who that was? It was Dr. Markowitz! He wanted to see how I was doing!"

Don't underestimate the value of a personal contact like that. But remember it has to be a dedicated contact. So, you have to have a system, you have to have a plan. Thirdly, an effective shepherding plan must be comprehensive. And by, by far, this is the biggest failure in shepherding plans. And what do I mean when I say comprehensive? Well, when I say comprehensive, it has to include every member of the church. Every member of the church has to be included. That means that you have to review your membership roll. Because after all, if you ask yourself, "Who are these sheep for whom I am responsible?"

Remember this verse, another text that terrifies in Hebrews 13:17. "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority, they keep watch over you as men who must give an account." Obey your leaders and submit to their authority, they keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Now, I don't know about you, but I want to know those people for whom I have to give an account. So I believe that it's important for us therefore to understand the importance of the membership roll. These are people who have placed themselves under the authority of the leadership of this church. And they're the ones for whom we are to give an account.

So we have to include all of them in the membership, in the shepherding plan. Membership rolls are important. Some people say, when I was doing research about this several years ago, it was amazing what people would say as to why it was important to keep a membership roll accurate. Here's one of the things they would say. They would say, "We have to keep an accurate membership roll because we don't want to have to give too much to the denomination." So make sure our membership roll is lean and mean. So when we have to give to the denomination, if you're in that particular kind of a context, won't be so much.

Another thing they would say is, so it's not so hard to get a quorum for a congregational meeting. Is this shepherding language, my friends? This is not shepherding language. This is, this is pragmatic, you know. But those people who are on the membership roll of that church, they are people who at one time or another gave a valid profession of faith to some leadership of the church, and therefore you are responsible to care for them.

And I've asked, also, I've asked various churches, dozens of churches over the years, "How do you, how do you, how do you shepherd your people?" And probably the primary answer is small groups. Small groups. I said, "Well, that's very good." But what's my next question? "How many of your members are in small groups?" Right? So the answer to that in a, on a, in a good church is 60%. And what's my next question? "What do you do about the other 30%?" I've actually had people say to me, "Well, if they want to get shepherded, they'll, they'll join a small group." Attitude of a shepherd? I don't think so.

Now I just want you to know that some of you are in large churches. Still have responsibility. There, where there's a will, there's a way. We had a, a student, uh, we've had several students from Redeemer Church in New York City come through Westminster. And I had one in a class just last year, and I always have them do an interview assignment with leadership about different subjects. And this time it happened to be on shepherding again. And so I was very anxious to hear what Redeemer Church does in shepherding. I thought, "Okay, they got all this other stuff together, but certainly, they don't know what they're doing when it comes to shepherding."

Well, guess what? They do. And here's how. You cannot join Redeemer Presbyterian Church unless you identify a care group, a small group that you're going to be involved in. This is how they deliver shepherding care, and it's overseen by, by the elders. And just to give you an idea, this is as of last summer. They have, uh, 239 small group leaders with 10 to 15 people in each group. Over those 239 leaders, they have 35 to 40 leader captains. And over them, they have elders, seven care group directors.

And so when there's an issue, the issue is, is very quickly transferred up to the authoritative leadership of the church. I was really impressed. And so where there's a will, there is definitely a way for you to do this. And when you are considering those who are on your shepherding, on your membership list, don't forget the circumstantially inactive people. Don't forget the people who are shut-ins. Don't forget people who are in the military. Don't forget the people who are off to college. Because when is the primary time that the church loses people? It's when they go off to college. So we need to find ways to stay in touch. And yes, I encourage you. It's probably going to be unlikely you're going to be able to reach those college kids on their phones. So email them. Stay in touch. Do what it takes to stay in touch.

So it has to be comprehensive. Ask yourself the question, does my shepherding plan include all the people? Fourth, it has to be relational. It has to be relational. Remember John 14. Shepherd knows the sheep and the sheep know their shepherd. And what I have in mind here is the question of how you actually go about delegating sheep among the leadership. There have been different ways that this has been done. At 10th Presbyterian Church here in the city, they have a parish plan, which is quite impressive where they actually have divided their congregation by zip code. And in those, in that zip code, they have elders and deacons. And they take responsibility for the members in that area. They also have community assistants who help them maintain regular contact. Their goal is contact at least every two months, I believe.

I had the privilege of sitting in on a parish council meeting one time, where all these people were assembled to talk about the people in their parish and to pray for them. It was great. It was, it was really great. Parish plan, one way to do it. I like to encourage, especially for churches, really 500 and less, 500 and fewer, the elder draft plan works, works very, very well. So once you have identified that, how many of you have done the elder draft plan? Okay. That's great. The elder draft plan works really well. It brings the best of all worlds together. So you've got your membership list solidified, then you sit down one night. This takes an evening. You just takes an evening. And you basically go through the list and you draft. On what basis do you draft? Well, there's affinity. This person, these people are in my small group. I'll take them. These people are involved in a ministry I'm involved in. I'll take them.

So it brings together the best of all worlds. But you want to make sure that not everybody, not, that one person doesn't get all the troubled sheep, you know? That usually happens, that elder happens to be away that night. So, you know, it's like, who gets Harry? Who gets Harry? We'll give him the bill. That's not a good thing to do at all. And as I indicated earlier, what the elders do then in establishing that relational dynamic is that dedicated communication through the phone as well as other opportunities that arise.

And how important that is, especially when people begin to show signs of, of straying, you know? All too often in our churches, people just disappear without being noticed or without being contacted. There was a book written several years ago called Exit Interviews by William Hendricks. The subtitle, "Revealing Stories of Why People Are Leaving the Church." Here's what he says. He says, "I always ask my interviewees whether anyone had ever debriefed them on why they were leaving the church. Most of them said no one had. In fact, a number of them told me that I was the first person who had ever actively sought them out to hear whatever they might have to say."

"I wonder, might these things have come out differently if someone had simply listened to them as they were heading toward dropout status?" So, are you in a position to, to see? Are you in a position to pay attention? Are you in a position to respond? And then, do we care about the lost sheep? So we need to establish some means of that relational contact between elders, between leaders, and the sheep, so that the sheep know who their shepherd is and the shepherds know who their sheep are. In terms of being a faithful shepherd, this is our responsibility. We make sure that, that everybody is covered and everybody is cared for.

Fifthly, include the four shepherding functions. Now I don't have time to go into these in, in great detail, but if you, if you have the book, if you've looked at the book, you understand that the functions of the shepherd, knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting the sheep. Knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting the sheep. So, as we, as we know the sheep, this means that, let me just make this one, one qualification here. As I've worked through this material, a distinction that has really helped people in terms of putting meat on the bones of these shepherding functions.

There's a lot to leadership. There really is. All these things. But something that's helped us is to think of these categories in terms of macro categories and micro categories. And so there are responsibilities in each of these areas that we are called to for the congregation as a whole. For instance, think about the teaching ministry, the feeding ministry of the church. The macro ministry would be what? Be the public ministry of the word. Elders are responsible to oversee the preaching, teaching, Christian education. But when you come into the micro category, what does that look like? Well, that looks like discipling, mentoring, uh, perhaps small group leadership. But all these things are important.

When you come to discipline, on the macro level, we've got the idea of, um, really public warning, warning about the cultural wolves that are out there, training. And I would also suggest to you, the last stage of church discipline in Matthew chapter 18. But the micro level of discipline is admonition, the first couple of stages of Matthew chapter 18. That kind of interaction, that kind of counsel that you can give to people as you see them begin to, to wander away into a different direction.

And I would suggest to you that one of the things I think we fail at when we have new member interviews, we want to persuade them they should join our church, right? And we look at the, the biblical marks of the church. We understand what the biblical marks of the church are. So we get into that in our new member, new member classes, and we say, "Well, we want to be sure you understand that what the true marks of the church are. The proper preaching of the word of God, faithful preaching of the word of God, faithful administration of the sacraments, and what else?" Discipline.

So the new members come in there and they're, discipline. That's right. Now, I would, why don't we put that in its proper biblical categories? Why don't we say, "We, you know, we as elders in this church take the responsibilities of eldership important." You talk about feeding, and leading, and knowing, and what you're going to be doing. But you also say to them, "You know, one of our responsibilities as elders is to is to come after lost sheep." And you talk about Matthew 18. We go to Matthew 18. Matthew 18, verse 15 and following are the verses we're very familiar with. They talk about, "Well, if someone sins against you, you go to them," et cetera, et cetera. But do you know what comes before that? I know, Matthew 18:14, I know. But earlier than that, it, it talks about, it's the parable of the good shepherd.

And what does the good shepherd do? He leaves the 99 and he goes after the straight. You tell the people that. And you say, "The reason that Matthew 18:15 and following is there is because this is an example of what the good shepherd does. And so we just want you to know that if you begin to stray, we're going to come after you." Always smile when you say that. "We're going to, we're going to come after you." But, you know, if you put it in its proper biblical context, it makes, it makes a lot more sense.

So I'd encourage you to take a look at those and to consider how well you're doing in knowing the sheep, feeding the sheep, leading the sheep, and protecting the sheep. And our effectiveness as leaders flows from the micro area into the macro area. You're only really going to be able to know what to teach if you know your flock. You're only going to know where to lead if you know what gifts the people have and what you're able to do. So keep those four shepherding functions in mind.

And sixthly, if the, if the worst one in terms of accomplishing this is the comprehensiveness factor, this is next, accountability. Accountability. So, uh, you set up a plan, you set up a plan, and if you don't have any accountability, guess what? Right. All right. So I, I'm a professor at Westminster Seminary. And, uh, guess what? If there was not a deadline, how many papers do you think I'd get? Students always want to know on what basis are we going to be graded? When is everything due? I said, "Oh, I'm not going to give you a due date." "Oh. All right."

Well, it's the same way when it comes to our shepherding plans. Something that, uh, you need to do, I encourage you to do is to have a dedicated time every month with your leaders when you do nothing but report to one another and pray for one another about the contacts you're receiving from the sheep. And one of the things I didn't mention earlier is that if you have elders and deacons, I encourage you to use both your elders and deacons on shepherding teams.

And here's the reason. Elders and deacons together represent the comprehensive care that Christ has provided for his sheep. So that the, the ultimate spiritual authority and direction is found in the elders, but coming alongside them are the deacons who are charged to care for the material needs of the flock. And how much more effective are we going to be if we're working together with our congregations, and a diaconal need comes up and you're right there, and you're able to say, you know, "Betty just lost her job." And the deacons are right there alongside.

So, this is very important for several reasons. One reason is that as I, it gives, it gives the proper attention and the proper honor to the office of the deacon. Now, many of our churches, how do we think about our deacons? What do they do? What? Building maintenance. That's right. That's and they, they do have responsibility for that. They have all those kinds of physical needs on the macro level for the congregation, right? That's the way they think. But they're also responsible for the micro needs of the congregation as they become aware of them. And what this has done, when we employed this at our church, it has elevated the view of the deacons about their work.

And it's elevated the view of the deacons in the eyes of the congregation, too. I used to say when we first went to Crossroads that we needed a de-congestant. Did you get it? That's 2:00, 2:10 here. A de-congestant. Deacon, D-E-A-C-O-N, I guess if you have to repeat it, you blew it, right? That's right. All right. But anyway, in our, in our congregation, especially as an urban, multi-ethnic congregation where, when we left just a few months ago, there were first generation immigrants from 25 countries. Uh, and, and tons of needs, tons of needs. And I can say to you that the elders and deacons in partnership with one another have really grown in their ability to care for those needs. And the deacons have been on the forefront of, of meeting the material needs of the people, I think with, with great wisdom.

And so if you would say, if you would characterize our work as elders, teaching and ruling, in our churches, this way, "It's about the sheep, stupid." I think the deacons should be able to say, "It's about the sheep, stupid," too. Characteristic, what is our focus? Our focus is serving Christ by serving his flock. Accountability. Have some way to, to maintain that accountability with one another. And last and least, and I've sped through, is prayer. Last but not least is prayer.

You, you're in ministry. You know how hard it is. You know, one of my, one of my favorite movies is, um, League of Their Own. And my daughter, who is now far beyond high school, but she used to, she used to go out for softball. But she would, every spring she would say, "I don't know if I want to go out. I don't know." So she'd watch League of Their Own. About the first All-American Baseball League. And then she would go out for baseball. She would go out for softball. So a few weeks ago, there was a, a theater in Lancaster County where one night a week they show old movies, older movies. So they were showing League of Their Own.

So I said, "Hey, Beck. I want to take you out. I'm not going to tell you what we're doing. But I just want you to come." So she came out and said, "Where are we doing?" I said, "I can't tell you." So we're driving through the farmland, this, this theater is out in the middle of nowhere. It's, "And we're, what are we doing?" "Oh, So we drove up to this movie theater, and she says, "Oh, we're going to see a movie." I said, "Yeah, but you still don't know." I said, "You stand back here," because it wasn't on the marquee since it was a, a special thing.

And, um, so we went in, and we went down the hallway, and it was League of Their Own. And she was all excited and it was really, it was really a lot of fun. But watching the movie again, Tom Hanks is amazing in this movie. Gina Davis, who's a star player, is leaving. She's leaving. And he says, he tries to persuade her to stay, if you remember. And she says, "I can't stay. It's too hard." You know what he said to her? "It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be hard." These things, these things are hard. This is why we need to be people of prayer, and corporate prayer, praying for these sheep, praying for the flock as leaders together.

But making sure, if we're contacting our sheep, crucial that when we receive those requests, it is not just, the job is not done when we receive the request. The job is only done when we pray about that request and follow up. So those are seven elements of an effective shepherding plan. And if you've got them all, certainly some are stronger than others. If you don't have them all, you need to work on this.

J.I. Packer's introduction to The Reformed Pastor, he wrote these words. He said, "How to do this today would have to be worked out in terms of present circumstances, which are very different from those Baxter knew. But Baxter's question to us is, should we not at least do this as a constantly required need? If he convinces us that we should, it will not be beyond us to find a method of doing it. After all, where there is a will, there is a way." And so for you, just remember, the sheep are going to require your attention. They are.

If you're just going to settle for reactive shepherding, it's going to be difficult and troublesome. But if you develop a proactive plan, you'll be able to preclude some of the difficulties. And be in a better position to care for these sheep whom God has entrusted to you. Let's pray.

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