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In my book When Sheep Bite, I not only wrote about biting sheep, but I also wrote about wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, and wolves who aren’t trying to hide themselves at all! How are shepherd leaders to deal with these folks?
That was one of the topics I addressed on the Leading From Alignment podcast with John Opalewski and Jim Wiegand.
In the chapter of my book called ‘Driving Away the Wolves,’ I wrote:
Loving shepherds are constantly among their sheep so that the sheep can know their voice and so the shepherd can know the voice of each individual sheep. This has the two-fold benefit of the sheep knowing which voice is trustworthy, and for you as the shepherd to spot the off-key voice of the “meaningless talk and deception” of those wolves who are hiding out among the sheep.
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There are some know-it-alls who want to tell pastoral leaders how they should have done things differently. Much like the “armchair quarterbacks” that seem to know all the right calls a team should make, even though they have virtually no experience.
Pastor, pay very little attention to those armchair quarterbacks that would speak into your life!
To put the quote that Jim shared from When Sheep Bite into context, here is the full passage—
Jesus is our perfect example of a Shepherd Leader. His example was to lay it all on the line, regardless of how the sheep were behaving or misbehaving: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). By contrast, Jesus warns us that those who are not willing to put their lives on the line for the sheep are worse than armchair pastors—Jesus calls them mere hired hands: “The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:12-13).
If I am called to be a shepherd leader, attacks will come from both sheep and wolves. It’s what I do in those hard times that shows whether I am truly called or merely acting as an armchair shepherd.
Jim’s book centers on the intersection of three circles. This is the “sweet spot” where people are doing what God created them to do. In order to find your sweet spot (or help others find theirs), Jim gives us three questions. Here are those questions with a couple of supporting quotes.
Question #1—What is your passion?
“The easiest question is the first one I always ask and sounds something like this: What are you passionate about? What thrills you when you get to do it? What makes your heart come alive when you see it? What do you love to do when you’re done doing what you have to do? If all jobs paid the same and you couldn’t fail, what would you do starting tomorrow?”
“Paul said he was ‘compelled’ to preach the gospel and that it was a ‘pleasure’ to do so. His passion for the God of the lost and the lost themselves caused him to travel the world. Everywhere he went, he saw revival or a riot, or at times, both in the same day. Then he’d be mistaken for a Greek god, stoned and left for dead or at times beaten, imprisoned, and slated for execution. And then the next day, he got up and did it all over again. That’s not fear of failure! That’s a God-given passion to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ!”
Question #2—What is your pain?
“What bothers you? What is it you see in the world that you would change? What breaks your heart? What do you find yourself praying about more than any other thing? What subjects do people no longer want to talk to you about because you’re always talking about those things?”
“The way I figure it, if it was bothering me the way it was, I was probably the one God wanted to do something about it. You see, I’ve learned that if I do something about what bothers me, and you do something about what bothers you, and the folks around here all do something about what bothers them, well, eventually there may come a day when there won’t be anything left to bother anyone.”
Question #3—What is your proficiency?
“What are you good at? What comes naturally to you? What did you pick up quickly and easily compared to others around you? What do you do with little effort that takes others much effort?”
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Before you recruit someone to fill that next opening in your organization, I’ve got a resource that you should definitely check out. The resource I am referring to comes from the book Recruiting to Releasing by Jim Wiegand. I had a chance to sit down with Jim to talk about this eye-opening book.
Purchase your copy of Recruiting to Releasing on Amazon here, or on Apple Books here.
If you would like to check out when Jim interviewed me about my book When Sheep Bite, check out that video here.
Fellas, the godly superwomen in our lives have unlocked our leadership potential. What are you going to do with that? You have only two choices: steward it or squander it. We only honor these godly women when we steward that potential well. Watch the full Father’s Day sermon here.
I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
Dan Reiland addresses an important topic for busy leaders: busy work vs. real work. “Doing the easy stuff makes us feel good, doing the hard stuff helps other people live better. When we focus on our real work over busywork, we see intentional progress toward a focused vision or goal, rather than just checking things off a list.” Check out the four things Dan calls leaders to focus on.
“Because of what Jesus did for us through His life, death, and resurrection, we are no longer the worst things we have ever done. We are now the best thing God has ever done for us! That’s what God saved us from.That is our history. Now the question is, what has God saved us for? That is our destiny!“ —Jim Wiegand, in the Everything Begins With Purpose reading plan on YouVersion
A good reminder for pastors. “Call your own soul often to account; examine the temper, the frame, and the motions of your heart with all holy severity, so that the evidences of your faith in Jesus, and your repentance for sin, and your conversion to God, be many and fair, be strong and unquestionable; that you may walk on with courage and joyful hope toward heaven, and lead on the flock of Christ thither with holy assurance and joy.” —Isaac Watts
“The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.” —Herbert Brocknow
“‘The fear the Lord.’ This refers to an awesome respect for God, which is a good thing. Without it, people are presumptuous before God. Those who do not fear God fail to respect His awesome power and righteousness, and they do not recognize the infinite distance between their sins and His holiness.“ —Quest Study Bible commentary on Psalm 128:1
“Our Lord did not ask us to give up the things of earth, but to exchange them for better things.” —Fulton J. Sheen
“Abortion advocates have long labeled humans in the earliest stages of development as ‘nothing but’ clumps of cells. This description is like calling Michelangelo’s David ‘a clump of marble.’ The only difference is that while art historians know every detail of this statuary masterpiece, scientists are still unlocking the secrets of the embryo.” John Stonestreet shares some astounding new research about the ways that the cells of a baby develop in a way that can only be attributed to an All-Wise Creator.
The unrighteous always seek to pull down those who hold to God’s righteous standard. How sad that they think it easier to pull the righteous down than to repent of their own evil. God sees this: He rewards the righteous who do not compromise and He punishes the unrepentant unrighteous who try to force the righteous to compromise.
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I want to make sure there are no misunderstandings on this, so please stay with me! I realize that the title of my newest book—When Sheep Bite—may bring a picture to your mind that I never intended.
Check out this episode of The Podcast.
Here are some helpful resources from this episode:
If you would like to watch the full interview I did on the Converge Coaching podcast, check that out here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
As I was being interviewed on theLeading From Alignment podcast, Jim Wiegand and John Opalewski were asking me about back-to-back chapters in my book Shepherd Leadership where I discuss how a leader’s confidence and humility should be in a healthy tension with each other.
There is an alter-ego superhero I created to help me learn this lesson—his name is Plungerman!
In my book Shepherd Leadership, I talk about the simple three-word phrase that has helped me maintain this balance: God chose me. The fact that God did the choosing should give me the confidence to cast vision, but the humility that God chose me—out of all of the other people He could have chosen—should bring an appropriate humility that allows me to involve other leaders on my team.
If you would like to watch this full interview on the Leading From Alignment podcast, please go here. And if you would like to check out other clips I’ve already shared, please click here.
I’ll be sharing more clips from this interview soon, so please stay tuned. Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter is available in print or ebook, and in audiobook through either Audible or Apple.
Craig T. Owens 