Let It Grow: How to Develop a Gospel-Shaped CultureSample

Culture Priority #4—Strengthen Hearts with Strong Care

In his book The Motive, author Patrick Lencioni describes the dichotomy between what he calls “reward-centered leadership” versus “responsibility-centered leadership.” Reward-centered leaders seek titles and perks but avoid the real responsibilities that servitude requires. Responsibility-centered leaders embrace service and care. Jesus expressed that He came not to be served but to serve and give His life (Matt. 20:28). Lencioni asks an insightful question (I’m adding the word “pastor” to my paraphrase).

Do I merely want to be a pastor? Or do I want to do what pastors do? Pastors pastor. We care for sheep. We love people. We bear burdens, absorb hurt, and feel deeply without being defined by those feelings. We help emotional people know how to process and place those emotions. We enter hard, messy things so we can help anxious sheep be at rest, and we assist upset people in dealing biblically with their feelings. We take the high road to lead God’s sheep to tender nurture. We extend all the grace we’ve been given to the sheep that grow under our supervision. We enter tactfully and tenderly into difficult conversations to make peace from the peace we have received.

I’ve known men who wanted to be a pastor. They sought prominence, platform, perceived power, or a set of perks. But they didn’t want to do what pastors do. They didn’t want the hard heart work of study, burden-bearing, soul-nurturing, and disciple-making. They disdained the sacrifice of service—accessibility, loss of privacy, fluidity of schedule, criticism, the pressure of answering to many people, and the general glass-house life. They wanted some imagined form of prestige or identity (however skewed or small) while repudiating the actual privilege of shepherding God’s people. Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd. The very essence of pastoral ministry is cooperating with His care for His church. To the degree that we experience that care personally, we become conduits of it corporately. In a large sense, the leader’s soul is contagious, and the church culture takes on the shape of the leader’s heart for Jesus.

The beautiful reality is this: as we care for God’s people, He will care for everything else. I’ve heard pastors say, “There’s just never enough money.” I know what they mean, but the thought is an accusation against God. It’s like thinking, If only God would provide, we could get a lot more done for Him! God isn’t dropping the ball or failing us. There may not always be money for my ideas or desires, but God always provides for His. The church that faithfully cares for Jesus’ sheep will always have enough resources to do so. It’s what He does. It was wonderful when God dropped this realization into my heart: Jesus has given me all the resources He wants me to have to do everything He wants me to do right now. The pressure of fundraising evaporated, making me free to be a contented shepherd cultivating good health at God’s pace of provision.

Pertaining to Isaiah 40:11 where God states that He will “gently lead those that are with young,” Ray Ortlund once made a brilliant and insightful statement. He said, “If young moms can follow you cheerfully, you’re doing it right.”

The picture of burdened young mothers breathlessly, frantically, anxiously trying to keep up with an overaggressive, outpacing shepherd brought profound resolve to my heart.

If Jesus leads “those that are with young” gently, then so will I. “‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the Lord” in Jeremiah 23:1. It is often a hypocritical blind spot that those who deal harshly and greedily with God’s people expect those same people to deal gently and generously with them. We all need gentle shepherding. Sow harshness, reap harshness; sow gentleness, reap gentleness. Sow generosity, reap generosity. But never forget—Jesus is gentle.

Cultivation and care is long, slow, tedious work. Fruit is sometimes decades in coming. Jesus has given a lifetime runway of sanctification in environments of infinite grace. What does He find in the sheepfold under your care? Division? Disunity? Contention? Malnourishment?

Exhaustion? Frazzled families? Depleted staff? Competition? Comparison? Politics and power struggles?

This is often a reflection of a proud or neglectful shepherd. Or does Jesus find well-fed, restful, peaceable, flourishing sheep who are well-cared for in grace and comfort? May we seek to have the heart of Isaiah: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary” (Isa. 50:4). And the heart of Paul in 2 Timothy 2:24–25: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.”