I agree that chasing is not advisable. However, do you at least schedule house calls to intimately talk with your members, or do you just say, "The door is open from 9-3 from Tuesday to Friday"?
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What is a pastor?
- Thread starter Reynolds
- Start date
Nope you are misrepresenting my position. They have a choice. They can come to me or leave. Cannot ignore than can come to me. That opportunity is there. Further I cannot do everything. If there are pastors out there who allow themselves to be run ragged by scorners then I do not know them. There is great wisdom in what I say backed by scripture.
Oh no, I visit my people. Cant know them if you do not visit with them. Then of course there are many other opportunities to interact with them.
I am not intending to misrepresent your position.
Why is everyone who leaves a scorner? There are many people that left church whose house I went to, identified the problem, resolved the problem, and they came back. They were not scorners. They were hurt.
I will say that my brother and his wife attend a 9marks Baptist Church. Their structure is all about biblical elders and deacons functioning in their roles and members living into community with one another. The congregation is meeting in various ways for much of the week. They are encouraging each other and caring for their unsaved neighbors. I am truly impressed with the structure and discipline of the body.
They are scorners because because of the way in which they dealt with it. Your hurt doesnt afford you the right to act childish. My experience is that people who leave that way only want it their way and will not budge.
My experience is quite the opposite. Many will come back. Many won't. The ones who won't still need talked to. Many times they are canaries in the coal mine.
Many times what you mistake as childishness is really maturity. They just leave because they don't want to start trouble so just walk away.
Im sorry, someone who has that kind of wisdom do not just up and leave without talking to the pastor. Ever
They do. I guarantee you that they do. Especially when the problem is with someone who is very close to the pastor, or in the most classic case I first hand dealt with, the pastors wife.
I think the parable is extremely instructive to Pastors. The lack of Pastors checking on wayward sheep is partly due to the decline of Agrarianism, which produces a lack of knowledge base about how sheep are to be handled. This knowledge base lets you draw additional connections from Scripture.
My neighbor across the road has a flock of sheep and goats. Some Pastors seem to think feeding is the main task, but it isn't. My neighbor has to feed his flock, monitor and adjust mineral intake, account for predator losses, thwart predators, sit out at night with a gun to protect the flock, monitor abscesses in their hooves, shear them in summer, etc.
A sheep can't survive on its own for a single day without sheer luck. You gotta track that sheep down ASAP if you don't see it amongst the flock. There's a whole lot more to being a Shepherd than just feeding them. If you do nothing but feed sheep they'll all be dead in a week.
The modern trend where 'pastoring' is actually the exploitation of the flock to 'impact the community' is the chief contributor to the notion that pastors should 'refocus'. The true feeding of Christ's sheep would not result in the neglect of the pastoral family.
That family couldn't have reached out? Sounds like butthurt to me.
Might be. Sheep need a shepherd. If sheep were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, they would need no shepherd
Keep in mind, that was not a family. That was most families.
I will give you the the example that most bothered me. Family was gone from church over a year. I ran into them at a ball game. I was not a Deacon at this particular time. Ask them why they left church. Their answer was: We went on two week vacation and missed two Sundays. Then the next Sunday, Two of our Kids we're Sick. The next Sunday our other son was sick. Then my husband said it's been 4 Sundays we have not been there and no one has called or e-mailed or text. They don't care about us.
They quit coming. At a year no one had reached out to them.
Butt hurt? Probably. Immature,? Probably.
Did the pastor and asst pastors handle that situation right? No. They should have reached out.
Church had about 200 Sunday avg at the time. 3 full time pastors on staff. They had time.
Sheep are going to be sheep. Shepherd can't say "These stupid sheep still act like sheep so I am no longer going to be a shepherd. I am going to throw feed out twice a week and the rest is up to them."
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I agree. Many are not even impacting the community.
We had pastors that harped on "It's your job to get people to church." Under them, the church always declined. We had pastors who took it upon themselves to bring new people into church. The church grew and fluorished under them. One of the old men in the church used to say "I don't want to hear the preacher's sermons from the pulpit until I see his sermons in his life." That gentleman was not lazy. He was probably the hardest worker in that church.
I used to go visit people and invite them to church. Very few would come. I would go by the parsonage, get the preacher, drag him over his every objection, go visit the same people and they start coming to church. If a pastor personally invites someone to church, they are much more likely to come than if invited by a Deacon or a lay member.
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One thing to remember. Church population size does not equal spiritual growth and maturity. If it did, then the mega churches like Joel Osteen's church would be what God calls good.
You can have a church of ten that is more healthy than a church of ten hundred.
However, being a shepherd is definitely more than a teaching ministry and it is my experience that our younger pastors are coming out of seminary having teaching on their skill set, but not shepherding. Thus, churches lose sheep, not because of poor teaching, but due to negligence in caring for the sheep.
I get what Rev is trying to say. There is not enough time in the day to do all things. This is why the unpaid elders will need to join hands with the paid elder(s) to care for the sheep.
I agree, but I do think there is a balance somewhere between the church that is an inch wide and a mile deep and between the church that is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Being a minister but never a pastor, my post is taken from a view of outside looking in. The pastor’s role is to teach the word so that his sheep are fed good food through his sermons. He is to visit the sick in his flock, to make time every day for personal study. To always be available (I say this knowing that there will be times they just cannot be there, but it needs to be better than 50% of the time, that’s for sure) when one of his flock needs him. I know there is more, but I think this is sufficient.
Yes he is.
The church my wife and I are members of now has a pastor who truly cares for us. When I was attending and my wife was lost at the time, she found out she had breast cancer. He and his wife came to our house(this was 2019) and had prayer with us. I know he does go and visit ppl at home and in the hospital as well. Granted, our church is rather small, ~30 attendees each Sunday, but usually less than that, sometimes in the teens. But he does the best he can do. For being 74-75(he just had a birthday and earlier he told me he was 74 so I’m assuming he’s 75 now) he is in really good health. Still deer hunts every fall.
Luk 15:4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?
Guys this verse has no context nor application to pastors chasing after members who take their ball and go home when they dont get their way. The context is made clear:
Luk 15:7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
The verse is talking about lost people. The word sinner is not a reference church members who vlaim yo know Christ. It is a clear reference to those who dont know Christ.
Let me be clear, the use of words like shepherd and sheep does not justify misapplying this verse to whatever agenda we may have. Applying it to pastors and church members is ripping it out of context and comitting violence to Gods word.
That kind of misapplication is what leads to a decline in churches.
Now, members leaving the church, just not coming, withholding tithes etc. is sin. When I do deal with those issues in the church I will be glad to hear them out but not until we deal with their sin problem first. This type if behavior is unacceptable, cannot be allowed as a manipulation tactic.
This kind of behavior can become contagious every time members dont get their way. Let me be clear, this kind of behavior 99% of the time is not honest hurt. It most often is a result if a consumer mentality. That is if they dont get what they came for they will go somewhere else to get it.
Now the one single issue that contributes to church growth has been church swapers. Now while there are dome who take their ball and go home there are 3 or 4 more issues within the church to deal with. There is time spent in prayer and the word, there is reaching the lost, etc. there are a hundred other things a pastor has to deal with demanding his time.
Now there are dome pastors who only preach and visit members. These are not really pastors they are chaplains. They have more time because they do so little.
Then there is balancing time between ministry and family. So chasing after consumer members is not high on my priority list.
Guys this verse has no context nor application to pastors chasing after members who take their ball and go home when they dont get their way. The context is made clear:
Luk 15:7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
The verse is talking about lost people. The word sinner is not a reference church members who vlaim yo know Christ. It is a clear reference to those who dont know Christ.
Let me be clear, the use of words like shepherd and sheep does not justify misapplying this verse to whatever agenda we may have. Applying it to pastors and church members is ripping it out of context and comitting violence to Gods word.
That kind of misapplication is what leads to a decline in churches.
Now, members leaving the church, just not coming, withholding tithes etc. is sin. When I do deal with those issues in the church I will be glad to hear them out but not until we deal with their sin problem first. This type if behavior is unacceptable, cannot be allowed as a manipulation tactic.
This kind of behavior can become contagious every time members dont get their way. Let me be clear, this kind of behavior 99% of the time is not honest hurt. It most often is a result if a consumer mentality. That is if they dont get what they came for they will go somewhere else to get it.
Now the one single issue that contributes to church growth has been church swapers. Now while there are dome who take their ball and go home there are 3 or 4 more issues within the church to deal with. There is time spent in prayer and the word, there is reaching the lost, etc. there are a hundred other things a pastor has to deal with demanding his time.
Now there are dome pastors who only preach and visit members. These are not really pastors they are chaplains. They have more time because they do so little.
Then there is balancing time between ministry and family. So chasing after consumer members is not high on my priority list.