Driving Them Sheep

"Yippee Ti Yi Yo, get along little dogies" is a line of lyrics from a cowboy ballad, made famous by mostly perhaps by both Roy Rogers and Sons of the Pioneers. The part, "git along little dogies" is a phrase cowboys (ranchers) have been known to shout forth while driving the herd. You might want to play this song while reading this post. Here is a you tube video you can click on to listen while you read:

"Once you decide you want to grow, you’ll need to analyze your role as pastor.  You 
must be willing to change from minister to leader.  If everything depends on you - if you 
have to personally minister to every person in your church - then the church cannot 
grow beyond your own energy level.  And that is a barrier! You become the bottleneck, 
an obstacle to growth." -Rick Warren
                                                                                                        Eight Steps to Grow Your church -by Rick Warren, posted by: T&W Church Solutions 


So..... according to church growth advocate Rick Warren, for a church to GROW, the role of a pastor needs to CHANGE. With a larger congregation these leaders are not only supposed to stop being ministers and become leaders, but also changed from being shepherds to ranchers.



"Git along little dogie..."





It is just too hard for the pastor of a large church to tend to all those needy sheep. The solution is to delegate the responsibilities to people who are, somehow, lesser leaders than themselves... Rick refers to them as "undershepherds."


Rick says,

"As the church grows you must change roles from Shepherd to Rancher. The Rancher helps oversee the under-Shepherds. Practically everybody on my staff does more weddings and counseling than I do (in fact, I do very few now because I don’t want to show favoritism among our 17,000 members)."

Eight Steps to Grow Your church -by Rick Warren, posted by: T&W Church Solutions 

"Rancher"?

Leader instead of minister....
Rancher instead of Shepherd.
 Becoming a "rancher" is like making yourself into 
the "executive" in charge of the operation.

"As the pastor of a little church you know everybody, you do all the praying, all the baptizing, all the teaching, you know every family, every kid, every dog and cat and you shepherd everybody personally.  But there's a limit to how many people you can personally shepherd.   As the church grows you must change roles from Shepherd to Rancher." -Rick Warren 

                                                                                                        Eight Steps to Grow Your church -by Rick Warren, posted by: T&W Church Solutions 

It is the kind of thing that makes one wonder, 

you know....when the pastor no longer wants to 

have to do THOSE mundane things 

that ministers and shepherds do.

"The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:

2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;3 Neither as being lords over God's heritage, 

but being examples to the flock."

1 Peter 5

^"42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. ⁴³ But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: ⁴⁴ And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,

 and to give his life a ransom for many."  

Mark 10