Shepherding and Intimacy

To pastor, in faithfulness to Jesus, is to shepherd people. While there are many things that can occupy the time of the pastor, the care of His sheep is of prime importance (John 21:16). But the word “pastor,” fails to reflect this responsibility. For what is a pastor in today’s parlance? One who heads a congregation, leads the people? In this his responsibilities center on teaching, organizing, and leading an organization.

The word pastor is a transliteration of the Anglo-Norman-French word, pastour, which means “shepherd.” So, to pastor is to shepherd. Shepherding invokes images of sheep in the field. Creatures who are depended for sustenance, physical care, and protection by a caregiver, the shepherd.

This imagery rushes caring and intimacy to the forefront. The idea of what it means to care for God’s people takes a more personal hue. Pastoring is shepherding and shepherding is caring for people. The things that pastoring tends to suggest today are merely means of tending God’s flock. They are instruments utilized to tend to, build up, heal, and guard the sheep.

But, the everyday work-a-day world of the shepherd (pastor) can lack the intimacy essential for the nourishment and renewal of the shepherd’s own inner life. Busyness, meetings, agendas, visions, and management compete with contemplation, solitude, friendships, prayer, and sabbath (Acts 6:4). It is these last that foster the deep, loving, intimate relationships, with Jesus, spouses, family, and friends, which provide replenishment so necessary to be spilt upon the sheep.

The isolation of shepherds detaches them from the experience of the sheep and the pasture in which they abide. Patience with the social rhythms of life can be lost. This results in fleeting and shallow encounters with those who are the recipients of their shepherding care. The care of the sheep becomes a burden, a hindrance, an obstacle to the self-perceived purpose of their calling.

Shepherds are ensconced in this position, by being told, “You can’t have friends in the congregation you serve.”  So, shepherds conceal themselves behind their role. Place a barrier between themselves and those who are meant to journey with them in their own sanctification. Lacking intimacy, when the normal strains and stresses of life hit, to whom do they turn? To whom can they turn? Sadly, too often, no one.

Intimacy is important. Intimacy is essential. To care for the sheep, the shepherd must know the Chief Shepherd. To meet the needs of the flock, the shepherd must know the sheep. To be cared for the sheep must know and trust the under-shepherd (John 10:5). Without both vertical and horizontal familiarity, intimacy, on the part of the shepherd, nothing else progresses. At least nothing of eternal significance. Why? Because the needs of the sheep go unfulfilled. The flock withers, stumbles, is attacked, and diminishes.

Shepherd, do you know the Chief Shepherd?

Do you know His flock?

Does His flock know you?

Who are the intimates in your life?

What does intimacy with Jesus look like for you?