Shepherds are needed

Grab to eternal life!

Jesus is the way,
the truth, and the life

Shepherds are needed

It is good to pay attention to the personality of a worker because it is one of the key factors for the healthy development of a congregation. Qualities of a bishop were taught in 1. Timothy and in Titus, but a few other important points should also be mentioned. At least the following are worth noting:

Not as lords

- (1 Peter 5:2,3) Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly; not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind;

3 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage but being ensamples to the flock.

Firstly, it is good to notice that the worker of a congregation is a servant of Christ who does not bind people to himself, try to rule them and control their lives. Real leadership is about setting an example and shepherding the flock, not being a lord because only Christ is the head and Lord of the church (Col 1:18: And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.) Otherwise, the person steals the status of Christ from Him.

   Each worker should have as an example the good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who ”came not to be ministered to but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Matt 20:28). He said that the greatest is he who serves. This is completely opposite to many non-Christian sects (for example, Sun Myung Moon’s movement), in which one leader controls the lives of others, using money, human relations or threatening the judgements if the others do not obey him and value his teachings. There can also be law-minded teaching and misuse of the gift of “prophecy" to control – issues, which do not belong to the role of a shepherd, about which Jesus taught. If these features are seen, they reveal a distortion:

- (Luke 22:26,27) But you shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that does serve.

27 For whether is greater, he that sits at meat, or he that serves? is not he that sits at meat? but I am among you as he that serves.

- (Matt 23:11,12) But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

12 And whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

No impatience. One good feature of a spiritual worker is mildness and an ability to listen to the problems of people. It means that the worker cannot be impatient when people present their viewpoints, thoughts or worries. Sometimes, we can be as cold as icicles when confronted by the problems of others, even accuse them and remind them of their faults. We do not encourage them but discourage them with our accusations. As a consequence, many may leave the congregation:

The physician of the soul must absolutely win the trust of a person. It must be done! Without it, we cannot speak about any kind of real helping. I say this despite all: many physicians of the soul have gotten themselves stuck into a rut of their role so that growth and mobility of life have remained unfulfilled in their life. They become cold moralists whose tolerance towards problems of people is restricted and solidified to its place. Many “spiritual deaths” have occurred because people have not gotten pertinent pastoral care. When a member has left from the connection of a congregation, it has been seen only as secularising and as a willingness to go back to the sinful life. The possible hardness and coldness of the physician has not been taken into account, which may have driven the person further off from the congregation. (In this context, one should note that in pastoral care it is not nearly always a question of sin.) (11)

The major reason for this kind of attitude is our personality. Others are patient by nature and have the energy to deeply go into the problems of others but unfortunately not all of us have that nature. Especially people who are disciplined and perfectionists themselves are often impatient towards others. Usually, these properties go hand in hand.

   The only one who can help us win over our impatience is God. We need His patience and His love so that we can stand the various features of people and will not be immediately irritated. Only by the help of God is this possible. Paul wrote about this:

- (Rom 5:5) And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.

Secondly, it is good to note that many problems often vanish by themselves and people grow at their own pace. This means that intervention is not necessary in all problems and sometimes people need to be left in peace. The next quote refers to this:

Give space to people to make their own decisions. Do you meet in your work and nearest circle those who have just been saved? Do you want to help them to grow towards ripeness? Here is a hint: Give them room to grow in their own way. Give them room to learn at their own pace, as you too are learning, from faults and failures. If you really want mercy to be awakened, do not demand from them as much as was demanded from you. Do not decide on their behalf – give them plenty of space. Do not penetrate to their matters but leave them be. In any case, do not try to control and guide them to act according to your wishes. (12)

Attacks against others. One feature of a spiritual worker should still be mentioned, and that is the attitude towards other servants of God and towards Christians who have different opinions. It is possible that we do not act in love such as Paul taught. Such attitude can mean quick-tempered attacks upon servants of God and criticising their faults in newspapers or in the media. The explanation is usually fighting on behalf of the truth and the prevention of others going wrong ways. This has often occurred, and continues happening today.

   Where does this attitude come from? Is there any other reason besides lack of love? Perhaps envy and spiritual blindness are two influences:

Envy and its sister-sin pride usually appear together and are comparative in nature. They begin with comparison between what you have compared to others. Pride wants to always be the first, and if it achieves this, it enjoys the situation. Envy raises its head when somebody has more than you, and it makes you restless and angry. Saul's attitude towards David is an example of this:

- (1 Sam 18:7-9) And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.

8 And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?

9 And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.

What is the Bible's advice about envy? ”Follow you me.” (John 21:22), Follow Jesus. We must pay attention to Him and not to other people. Nobody has been called to compare his own tasks to the tasks of others. Every one of us must give account of himself, not of others (Rom 14:12). A person who becomes envious does not remember this. Neither does he understand that by his attacks against others, he will reduce his own eternal value:

“I became so proud at the end of my life that I could not imagine the Lord would do anything significant, unless it was through me. I started to touch the anointed ones of the Lord and to damage His prophets. I was selfishly proud when the Lord used someone of my disciples, and I became envious when the Lord functioned outside my own service work. I used to search out whatever fault in them I could find in order to expose them. I didn't know that each time I did this, I reduced my own station even more.”

   “I didn't know at all that you had done anything like that,” I said, surprised.

    “I did not do it myself but I provoked my subordinates to find out faults in others and to do my dirty work. I got them to snoop around closely so that some fault and sin would be found from the lives of others, so that they would be exposed. I became the worst a man can become on the Earth – a stumbling block, which produced other stumbling blocks. We sowed fear and disintegration in the congregation, all in the name of defending the truth. In my own righteousness, I went towards destruction. In his great mercy, the Lord allowed me to meet an illness, which caused a slow and humiliating death. Just before my death, I came to my senses and repented. I am very grateful that I am here. I may be one of his fewest here but it is far more than I deserve. I was not able to leave this room before I had a possibility to apologize to those of you to whom I did badly.”

   (...) “And we always calmed ourselves truly by thinking that we did a service to God by attacking against His own children”, an understanding sound of the man was heard. “It is good for you to understand this because you can go back. Please, warn my disciples about the threatening devastation if they do not repent. Many of them have been called to be kings here but if they won’t repent, they will face the worst judgement of all – the judgement of the stumbling blocks.” (13)

Spiritual blindness is another reason for such attacks. The question is that when an activity that is from God appears, some do not understand it as such and they regard it as deception (It is of course true that there is real discerning of spirits, by which it is possible to recognize the activity from the wrong source and the false prophets. Such is also needed). They can “in their perceptiveness” be quite sure about the matter, even though in reality they themselves are in spiritual blindness, even under religious anger. It is probable that just this kind of spiritual blindness is the largest deceiver among the people of God, which distributes congregations and Christian circles. The next quote is a good example of how we can fall under the domination of such an attitude:

At that time of my life, there was no place for dissidents and even for love. There was only a hard demand of scholastic perfection. Behind my demand, there was not God at all but my own religious flesh. In that condition, all spirituality, which differed from my own standards, was very suspicious for me. So, I preached diligently against other Christian circles and against forms of spirituality that I didn't understand. My role of the learning guard, although it had been sublimely assumed, rose not at all from fullness of my spiritual life, not to mention from the base of prophetic eyesight but from narrow and unclear spiritual vision and from the simultaneous need for recognition.

   (...) It has been a shock to observe later how I was ready to call large groups of living congregations and servants of God idle and even worse on the grounds of my vision of that time (or its deficiency) and information that came by another hands. I was not able to discern the spirits in my own heart and service action. (14)

                      Jari Iivanainen