Some of my favorite and most challenging descriptions of pastoral ministry come from the twentieth chapter of Acts and Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders. Here Paul the planter and pastor is bidding a final farewell to the elders at a church he loves. And in verse 28 he comes to what I believe is his description of the heart of pastoral ministry. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”
Paul tells us here about the pastor’s calling, and as he does that, he turns to the metaphor of sheep and shepherds. The pastor is an overseer or shepherd who cares for a flock. At the heart of ministry is this: the pastor is a shepherd called to tend sheep. But it’s important for the pastor to remember—not just once, but again and again—that the sheep are not his. He is merely an under-shepherd who labors on behalf of the Head Shepherd. This flock—these sheep—don’t belong to the pastor. They don’t exist for the pastor. They belong to God and exist
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