The topic for our August 1 Small Group Ministry Practitioners Hangout was “Training leaders to be shepherds to their little flock.” How do you train them? What do you teach? Great discussion; we all learned a lot from one another. +Jay Daniell, +Josh Hunt, +Emil Kerekes, +Jonathan Jordan, +Adam Workman, +Brandon Boyd, and I participated this month. Here are a few highlights.
The Shepherd never says, “I will tend the flock on Wednesday evenings from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m.” No! The Shepherd lives with the flock, sleeps in the fields with the flock, goes into treacherous situations to find a lost sheep, and carries the lambs in his arms. The Shepherd is the first one to go into the “valley of the shadow of death” to lead sheep to “green pastures.” (Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr., The Shepherd’s Guidebook, rev. ed. [Houston, Texas: TOUCH Outreach Ministries, 1996], 34.)