SERIES: Three Keys to Growing Healthy Churches
Feeding the Flock
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: As a pastor in one of the dynamic growth areas for the Free Church, I am often asked by people within and outside our denomination, “What is the key to the success you have experienced in church planting and church growth?” They seem to be looking for some logistical secret, technique, or methodology they can copy that will result in automatic growth and multiplication. And, indeed, there are churches which have grown far more rapidly than we have which have been built in just such a fashion. Some have used telemarketing; others have adopted a whole new worship format which stresses entertainment and outreach; still others seem to be built around a charismatic personality.
But as I have considered my own experience in Wichita and St. Louis, and as I have observed other growth situations in our own denomination, I have concluded that the sine qua non, the very essence of planting and growing healthy churches, is not found in technique or methodology but in three simple concepts: feeding, fellowship, and freedom. And my recent experience in teaching pastoral students from ten different countries in Amsterdam confirms strongly my conviction that these three issues are at the heart of what makes the church grow no matter where it is located.
My theme for the next three Sundays is simply this: to plant and grow healthy churches we must feed people, we must foster fellowship, and we must give them sufficient freedom to grow up in Christ. I am of the strong opinion that if the pastors and leaders of a local church do these three things well, the church will be reasonably healthy even if they do everything else wrong. It is also my opinion that if any one of these three factors is missing, a church cannot be healthy, even if they do everything else right.
Now just before we tackle the first of these three topics, let me say a word about why I have chosen to preach this three-week series now. Over the past two years I have addressed this subject at our Free Church National Conference, at the Midwest District Conference, at the Great Lakes District Conference, at the National Church Planters’ School, at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Holland. In every one of these settings people have expressed that these concepts were very helpful in understanding the principal task and mission of the church. So, I decided that if they were helpful to others, they ought to be helpful right here at home as well.
Our Elder Board has given a lot of attention to our own Mission Statement lately, and feeding, fellowship, and freedom are all intimately related to our Mission. Especially as we move towards establishing a permanent home here in West County, we need to return to the basics and answer questions like, “What are we here for? What has God called us to do? What has He promised to bless?”
My title for this first message is, “Feeding the Flock,” and my thesis is relatively simple: It is the primary duty of the church to feed sheep, but that involves more than the impartation of truth—it includes discipling, training, and equipping. In speaking of the need to feed sheep I am obviously speaking to myself, for one of the principal ways sheep are fed is by expository preaching and teaching from the pulpit. However, effective, balanced Bible teaching and discipling also needs to permeate the entire educational program of the church. In other words, there is a sense in which every growing, healthy, serving Christian is a shepherd, for all of us have been assigned some sheep to feed.
Shepherding is not high on the list of respected professions today, but I find it interesting that down through history God has solved many problems by laying hold of a shepherd. When He wanted to have a people of His own, He laid hold of a shepherd named Abraham. When He wanted to build that people into a great nation, he took another shepherd named Jacob. When He wanted to save that nation from famine, He called another shepherd—Joseph. And when that nation was in terrible disunity and needed a great leader, God called upon another shepherd—a young man named David. Even Jesus was not embarrassed to be called “the Good Shepherd.”
And what is the greatest task of a shepherd? It is to feed sheep, or at least lead them to good pasture. Yet at the same time a wise shepherd doesn’t just stuff the sheep; his goal is not to see them get fat, but rather to see them become healthy. So, I would like for us to turn to 2 Timothy 2 and look at some of the things that are involved in feeding sheep well. This is a portion of Scripture addressed by the Apostle Paul to his young protege, Timothy. While it is particularly relevant to pastors, it also has application to anyone involved in the work of building the Church of Jesus Christ. I want us to read 2 Tim. 2:14-26:
14 Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 16 Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. 17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 19 Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
20 In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. 21 Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
22 Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
The first task I find for faithful shepherds is this:
Remind God’s people of sound doctrine. (14)
Verse 14 opens with this exhortation: “Remind them of these things….” Paul has, in the previous 6 verses, set forth some very basic doctrinal truths, including the death and resurrection of Christ, election, salvation, the Kingdom, and judgment, and then immediately he urges, “Remind them of these things.” The verb “to remind” is in the present tense and denotes continuous action: “keep on reminding them.”
One of the rude awakenings I had as a young pastor was that my parishioners didn’t always remember the subpoints of my messages two years after I preached them. In fact, I now consider myself distinctly honored when a noble soul now and then remembers the subject I preached on the previous Sunday. The fact is people need to be reminded. One of the things a spiritual shepherd must learn is that basic truths must be taught over and over. We learn by repetition.
It was the Apostle Peter who, late in life, said to his charges, “I plan to keep on reminding you of these things even though you already know them and are really getting along quite well! But the Lord Jesus Christ has showed me that my days are numbered here on earth, and I am soon to die. As long as I am still here, I intend to keep sending these reminders to you.” (2 Peter 1:12-15)
So the first requirement of a faithful shepherd is to remind God’s people of sound doctrine. The second requirement is sort of a counterpart to the first: while we must remind of sound doctrine, we must not become doctrinaire. We must …
Avoid mere word battles. (14b)
“Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless, and leads to the ruin of the hearers.” The phrase “to wrangle about words” is just one word in the original, but it is a compound made up of the term for “word” and the term for “fight.” It literally means “word-fights.” It is amazing how easily we can slide from doctrinal teaching and expositional preaching into merely carting words back and forth and fighting over them. One of the few good things spoken by Father Divine, the flamboyant Black preacher, was his admission that “too many of us metaphysicians don’t know how to tangibilitate.” I don’t know what that means, but somehow I feel it applies to a lot of those who are graduates of Christian cemeteries (I mean Seminaries).
Perhaps I have told you before of a group of theologians who were discussing predestination and free will. When the argument became heated, the dissidents split into two groups. One man, unable to make up his mind which group to join, slipped into the predestination crowd. Challenged as to why he was there, he said, “I came of my own free will.” The predestination group retorted, “Free will? You can’t join us!” He retreated to the opposing group and was asked the same question. “I was sent here,” he answered honestly. “Get out!” they stormed. “You can’t join us unless you come of your own free will.” And the confused Christian was out in the cold. Mere word battles![i]
Of course, we know this is not really a laughing matter. For one thing, Paul said we should solemnly charge God’s people (not just charge them, but lay a solemn charge on them) not to fight over words. And secondly, we should do it in the presence of God, calling upon Him to be our witness. But why is word-wrangling so wrong? Paul gives two reasons: first, it’s useless in that it doesn’t accomplish anything good. But secondly, worse than that, it does accomplish something bad: “It leads to the ruin of the hearers.” The Greek word for ruin is katastrophe, from which we get our English word, catastrophe, and that describes the results rather well. Word fighting creates dissension among believers and destroys the reputation of the church.
So important is this issue that Paul later raises it again in verse 23-26: “But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition; if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge or the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”
Oh, how some people love to get involved in foolish and ignorant speculations, and how they love to argue! But the Lord’s bondservant cannot allow such activity to characterize his life. You can’t fish and fight at the same time. You’ve got to neglect either your net or your gun. Sheep are not fed when the shepherd is conducting word battles. The third task for feeding sheep well is …
Be honest with the Word of God. (15)
Verse 15 reads, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the Word of Truth.” Our children’s club, AWANA, takes its name from this verse. AWANA stands for Approved workmen are not ashamed.” An approved workman is one who, when he stands before God, has no occasion to blush, no feeling of shame. I remember a poster in the student lounge of Miami Christian College, where I taught many years ago. It showed a little boy drawing a picture. I don’t remember the picture, only that it was typical for a very young child. But what I do remember is that he was proudly signing his name, and the caption read, “Would you put your name on all of your work?” Well, there’s one way to be sure that you won’t be ashamed to have your name on your work: Be honest with the Word of God.
The King James Version in verse 15 reads, “Accurately dividing the word of truth,” which is the title of a well-known and influential book on dispensationalism, implying that we must accurately divide up the Bible into dispensations. Ironically, that very book is a classic illustration of what Paul was warning about here, for the furthest thing from his mind was dividing up the Bible into time periods. Paul was telling us to deal accurately with God’s Word, not allowing our theological prejudices to color our interpretations. Unfortunately, I see within conservative evangelical circles all kinds of tortuous interpretations used to substantiate theological hobbyhorses.
I know pastors who are so Calvinistic that when they go to John 3:16 they interpret it to say, “God so loved the world of the elect that he gave his one and only son….” I do not believe that is being honest with God’s Word. There are those who try to justify segregation by appealing to the curse on Ham, even though there is no historical or anthropological evidence to justify the view that Ham was the father of the Negro race. There are those who are so convinced of a pre-tribulation rapture that they are willing to go to the passage which is the most difficult for the pre-tribulation view, 2 Thes. 2, and take the word apostasia, translated, “falling away from the faith,” and twist it to mean a “falling away upwards” or “a rapture.” That is not handling accurately the Word of God.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the need to let the Bible speak for itself. You may have to change a long-cherished viewpoint, you may have to break with the opinion of one of your favorite radio preachers (God forbid), you may end up being forced out of the classroom of some church, but any or all of those eventualities are to be preferred to forcing God’s Word to fit your preconceived notion of what it should say. What we desperately need today are men and women willing to be absolutely honest with this Book!
Jess Moody said, in the way only he can, “If you preached a biblical sermon and the whole world hates it, tell them all to go to Heaven—and begin preparing another sermon just like the other one, only better. But beware, a man can be tempted to compromise. He who resists this temptation will one day find the applause of the angels to be deafening.”[ii] The fourth task for faithful shepherds is …
Avoid false teaching. (16)
And avoid it like the plague. Verse 16 reads, “But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness.” How do I get false teaching out of “empty and worldly chatter”? Well, from the context. Paul mentions two men, Hymeneus and Philetus, as examples of worldly and empty chatter, and he informs us in verse 18 that “they are men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and thus they upset the faith of some.” Then in verse 20 he adds that in a large house (like the Church) we must expect both good and bad dishes (true teachers and false teachers), and our duty is to cleanse ourselves from the dishonorable vessels, the false teachers, to stay away from them.
You see, Paul is here giving us the other side of the word-battle issue. We aren’t to fight over mere words, but we are to hold our ground on basic doctrines. I don’t believe God is pleased when He sees Christians fighting one another over petty issues. But at the same time, we should absolutely be declaring war on those false apostles and deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, all the while espousing doctrine that undermines the Christian faith. I’m thinking of cultists, New Age thinkers, and liberation theology advocates. What they teach is worldly and empty chatter. Faithful shepherds avoid false teaching and false teachers.
Fifthly, I skip over to chapter 4 for the most basic requirement of all for a faithful shepherd: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
Those words are the best motto any minister of the Gospel, clergy or laity, could place before him, but they are an absolute necessity for pastors. If a pastor fails to proclaim the Scriptures he fails at the point of his greatest responsibility. He can succeed at almost everything else—counseling, visitation, administration, you name it–but if he doesn’t preach the Word faithfully, he is a failure as a pastor.
Paul here offers four marks which should characterize the proclamation of the Word, whether by pastors, Sunday School teachers, or disciplers. First, there is the mark of …
Urgency. “Be ready in season and out of season.” He must be prepared on all occasions, whether convenient or not. He must not get lazy and leave his Bible study preparation to the last moment, when something more urgent may leave him totally unprepared. A second mark is …
Relevance. “Reprove, rebuke and exhort.” The one who teaches the Word must be relevant in his application to people’s lives. Depending upon the occasion, he may need to use any one of these three tactics. Those with doctrinal problems he may need to reprove or correct. Those with moral problems he may need to rebuke. And those with emotional problems he may simply need to exhort, which really means to encourage. The Christian worker who can’t distinguish these three can ruin his ministry. If he rebukes the person who needs encouragement or encourages the one who needs to be corrected, he may exacerbate the problem rather than solve it. The third mark is …
Patience. “Reprove, rebuke and exhort with great patience.” This balances the urgency we spoke of earlier. While we must be ready at any moment to proclaim the Word, we must not use human pressure techniques to contrive decisions from people. The work is ultimately the Holy Spirit’s. We must be patient as they grasp the truth, accept it, assimilate it, and mature in it. Finally, the preaching of the Word must be characterized by …
Intelligence. “Reprove, rebuke and exhort—with great patience and instruction.” Feeding sheep must not be primarily on the emotional level only, nor even on the exhortational level. It must involve instruction, teaching, doctrine, and truth based upon the careful study of God’s Word.
So, the charge to Timothy is to proclaim the Word, being urgent in his approach, relevant in his application, patient in his manner, and intelligent in his presentation.
There is one more task we must consider:
Equip the believer.
There was a time when I felt that sound doctrine and expository preaching were all that people needed, that healthy growth is automatic when sheep are fed a good diet. But now I realize that is not the case. It’s possible for God’s people to sit, soak and sour, getting so bloated on truth that they are completely unproductive. Back in 2 Timothy 2:2 Paul tells Timothy, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” He is speaking here of the necessity of helping the sheep become reproductive, bringing them to the point where it is natural for them to share their faith and knowledge with other sheep. This, then, is where evangelism and discipleship fit into the mission of the Church. It’s an extension of the feeding process. Well-fed sheep, trained and discipled, are the best equipped to reproduce themselves.
It is this aspect of the feeding task that we at First Free need to work on most. I think many of us are in danger of becoming bloated with spiritual truth. Our church needs a major new emphasis on discipleship, on growth groups, on mobilizing the laity, and on equipping every believer to use the gifts God has given him. And we are beginning to move in that direction. Calling Jerry Rich to join our staff was one step in that direction. Adding new mini-congregations in our School for Christian Living is another step. But not only do we need to offer such opportunities; our people need to acceptthem.
Not until a majority of our people are involved in small groups, where there is training and accountability, can we have any sense of satisfaction that our feeding of sheep is balanced and healthy. Lord willing, we will be offering some major new discipleship opportunities this Fall. In the meantime, I would once again encourage the more mature believers in the Body to seek out younger Christians and begin to meet with them on a regular basis in order to share your own growth experiences and strengthen their faith.
Conclusion: Unfortunately, there are many shepherds today who are not feeding the sheep. Listen to these powerful and convicting words from Ezek. 34:1-10:
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? 3 You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. 4 You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5 So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. 6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
7 “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
Friends, there are shepherds like the shepherds of Israel in abundance today. May we not be numbered among them. And may God continue to give the pastors, elders, teachers, and workers of our church the commitment to feed the sheep and help them grow to maturity.
DATE: March 11, 1990
Tags:
Church health
Preaching
Shepherding
False Teaching
Equipping
[i] Leslie B. Flynn, Great Church Fights, 57.
[ii] Jess Moody, A Drink at Joel’s Place, page number lost.