"No One Had A Curriculum"

[clein]

It’s a sobering thought but it’s true. No one had a curriculum. I don’t mean that there aren’t seminary curriculum’s and reading lists and “how-to� conferences. What I mean is that no one seems to have a curriculum for what matters the most – the heart, the passion for Jesus, the compassion for the sheep.

When I went off to seminary I entered a world structure by curriculum. We had courses that we were supposed to take to demonstrate proficiency in seven areas; The Holy Scriptures, Church History, Christian Theology, Christian Ethics, Contemporary Society, Liturgics, and Theory of Ministry. They made it seem as if that was what you needed to be in ministry. I’m sure all that stuff helped but nobody officially had a curriculum for the heart. Nobody sat down to see if I had a heart for the sheep. I think they just assumed it.

And I don’t blame them because the heart is so hard to measure. There is no test, no inventory that we can take for real character and compassion. It becomes subjective, like Abu-Jamal who could say, “My sons don’t have the heart.�

My comfort is that God doesn’t need us to have an inventory so He can figure out who will shepherd His flock. Somehow on His own He manages to do that. My responsibility then is to say “YES�. Then along the way He gives me the heart of the Good Shepherd.