ShepherdLeader.com

I am a bi-vocational minister who lives 40 miles from the church where I am serving. This has made being "present" with my congregation a great challenge. My church, understandably, defines being present with them in a physical-geographical sense: living within the community, occupying the...

In Psalm 23, David states, or perhaps sings, "The LORD is my shepherd" (23:1). When in his life he makes this profession of faith is unknown, yet I don't think it matters. Whether he was tending his father's flock as a shepherd in his early years or caring for his Father's flock as king of...

In my previous post on this site I declared that preaching is an essential aspect of being a pastor, or shepherd, for the people of God. I thought a colleague had proposed a much too narrow understanding of what it means to be a pastor of a church. Now, it seems, it is I who has had too limited an u...

Yesterday, I participated in an interview of a minister who was seeking to become a pastor for a vacant church in my denomination. During our conversations, he stated that he primarily has "a pastor's heart" and that he is "first a pastor, then a preacher." He followed up this st...

When Timothy Laniack states that "a good shepherd is a follower before he is a leader" (22), he reminds us of a fundamental truth regarding our identity as pastors: before anything else, we are followers of Jesus Christ. We, as pastors, are always disciples, students, sheep in need of care...