Hired Hand or Shepherd?

I’m plowing through the editorial comments from our friends who read Draft 1 of “Redeeming Church Conflicts” and WOW! Are we blessed to have such wise and generous friends. I really need wisdom, though, because sometimes one reader will say, “This section was fantastic!” and another reader will say of the SAME section, “Cut this for sure!” Thankfully, most of the time, the counsel lines up and for that, I am grateful.

One point that Dave makes that (so far) all of our readers have appreciated is this one. I hope it gives you something worthwhile to chew on too:

A ‘Hired Hand’ Mentality
In John chapter 10, Jesus describes the weaknesses of the hired-hand as a shepherd:

“The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” John 10:12-13

Many good seminary and Bible college graduates who had the vision, idealism, and heart for pastoral ministry have fallen prey to the reality of financial survival (they don’t want to risk losing their jobs) and become hired hands. Their followers have robbed them of the freedom to be shepherd leaders by holding the fear of unemployment over their heads in order to achieve a selfish agenda or serve their own sinful idols …

Church leaders who leave their congregations when the church is in conflict confirm their status as mere hired hands who have no commitment to legacy vision and who have forgotten their duties to be examples. I (Dave) observed such a failure of shepherd leadership in a conflicted mid-size church in the East several years ago. During the conflict intervention process I interviewed the former pastor by phone. He had left the church of his own accord several months earlier. As I attempted to draw from him his perspectives on the causes of the church’s conflicts and why he decided to leave rather abruptly he launched into a tirade against the elders, his associate pastor, and various other members of the church.

Try as I might to turn him from cursing his former sheep he insisted these people were evil and he had no recourse but to depart quickly. When he finally quieted I asked him ‘In the nine years previous to this conflict when you had preached, taught, and lead this congregation did you ever detect any rebellious spirit in the people you now clearly hate?’ To my surprise he said, ‘No.’ Here was a man who for nine years had been in the position of trust with these sheep but when the ‘wolf attacked’ (i.e., serious conflict came to the church) he ran away. My further investigation revealed the signs of the hired hand: moving to distance himself from the conflict, becoming more like a distant and detached caretaker, leading elder meetings but abdicating decision-making, not praying with anyone. He demonstrated little care for the sheep apparently caring more about the preservation of his resume and reputation positioning himself to accept a call to another church without the taint of a record of conflict. This man clearly was not a shepherd leader.

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice . . . I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:3b–5, 14–15