Utumishi Blog

Had a really encouraging time with a few brothers yesterday morning at the Nairobi Preachers’ Fellowship. Looked at Hosea 6-10. Lots of stimulating discussion and good questions raised. We particularly noted a lack of preaching on the depths of our sinfulness and awfulness of our plight outside of Christ. One reason suggested was the presence of an unstated ‘contract’ between pastor and congregation that might look something like this:

Pastor:
I will tell you what you want to hear.
I will motivate you, entertain you, give you an emotional high.
I will not preach much about your sin.
I will not make you feel bad.

Congregation:
We will attend your church regularly.
We give regularly, generously and exclusively to your ministry.
We will listen respectfully and attentively to you.
We will overlook your sins, not hold you accountable or question you.

Is there a grain of truth in that? Is there a danger of us getting into a comfortable, pathological, symbiotic relationships? Does a pastor or a congregation sometimes feel that they are above being rebuked?

Wonderfully, the biblical picture of pastoral ministry is not of a contract but of a mchungaji, a shepherd. Sadly sometimes shepherds rule with a rod of iron and fleece the sheep (Ezekiel 34) and sometimes the sheep love it that way (Jeremiah 5:31). But the real shepherd is a servant leader, feeding the sheep, bringing the straying, binding up the broken, laying down his life for them.

As an wise old pastor said to younger pastors: “You are their servant but they are not your boss.” Jesus is The Boss, of both the congregation and the brother who serves among them as the pastor. Jesus by free grace and mercy gives a particularly ministry to the pastor and food (the Word) for the pastor to give to the people; the pastor in turn pours himself out freely for his brothers and sisters, freely giving them the Word of Christ.

Grace.