Here is an excerpt from Gospel Houses written by Art Thomas. The book is a great resource for creating and sustaining House Church. It is packed with practical and real life scenarios of doing life together that will help your House Church grow and become effective. After reading this I found myself refreshed and fired up to go out and make disciples.
A shepherd’s primary responsibility is not to feed the sheep or make them healthy. A shepherd’s primary responsibility is to make sure the sheep are alive. Yes, this involves feeding them, caring for them, and monitoring their health; but these are all activities we do with living sheep. Otherwise, we find ourselves rolling carcasses from one pasture to the next, force-feeding and grooming them in hopes that something will change for the better.
The gospel is God’s power for salvation. It’s the mechanism that makes dead things live. And it’s the one meal that provides eternal life for sheep.
A moment ago, I said that the main problem isn’t the shepherd. But this doesn’t completely absolve shepherds of all responsibility. Yes, the main problem is dead sheep, but shepherds have been entrusted with a life-giving message that must be lived, proclaimed, and applied so that the sheep can live and thrive. When shepherds focus first on feeding and not on resurrecting, the work is hard, and messes ensue. Shepherds must make the gospel the priority in ministry to the sheep. As mentioned in chapter 13, it’s the solution to every problem. All other teaching or advice build on a gospel foundation so the Holy Spirit can express Jesus’s life through each person.
Far too many pastors are tempted to shepherd the old man. They give advice that even a person dead in their sin could follow. They try to manage people’s behavior. And when that behavior can’t be managed, they find ways to cater to unsanctified personalities.
Living sheep are harder to control but far easier to lead and serve. And that’s great because our mission was never to control the sheep anyway. Healthy, living, thriving sheep often take care of themselves. They eat on their own. They multiply without the shepherd forcing the issue. And they raise up the young with natural instincts and minimal help from the shepherd.
Jesus doesn’t expect you to shovel dead sheep from one pasture to the next. That’s not Christian leadership. He expects you to shepherd living sheep–people who have been made alive by the Spirit through the power found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.