Feeding The Sheep

I recently took a young man from our church to a garden center to buy a fish for his fish tank. This garden center in particular has a great aquarium section, with a plethora of interesting water creatures to decorate your home with; From fighting fish to living coral, I was as wide-eyed as him at the amazing display of fish, crustaceans and plants on sale.

At the counter we saw a small refrigeration unit that contained all sorts of food for the animals on sale. There were more usual items, but also worms and live shrimp to make a tasty snack for your purchase. I marveled at just how complicated and expensive it was too feed some of these creatures.

If you pastor for very long you realize just how accurate Christ was when describing His followers (and those that we lead - Acts 20:28) as sheep. Before I get lambasted, hey, I am a sheep as well as a shepherd! One thing we can say with sheep is that they are very simple to feed - they eat grass. Where some fancy tropical fish will die if it isn't kept in the most monitored of conditions, sheep will be pretty happy if they just have some decent grass to munch on.

So surely it can't be that hard to minister to God's people? Well obviously preaching is a little more complex than feeding our woolly friends, but essentially we need the same elements that real sheep need - the grass has to be lush, long and green if the sheep are going to be as strong as possible. It also has to be free of inedible or potentially poisonous weeds.

The point is that our people do not need fancy, theological gymnastics as their regular food, but something simple. Yet it can't be just simple, it has to be as lush and and as appetizing as possible. The best preachers are those that preach lushly illustrated, engaging and informative, yet essentially simple messages.

We must also endeavor to discipline our selves in study so that weeds don't end up in the grass -  a biblical inaccuracy popping up in a sermon can be real distraction at best, and poisonous at worst. Recently an otherwise good preacher made a statement about Adam possibly being in the garden for a million years, which is nothing more than a capitulation to evolution theory.

An excellent book to read that fleshes out the method of communicating simple principles in profound and memorable ways is Made to Stick, which is highly recommended for all those in ministry or who feel the call to preach.