18. Practitioner's Podcast: The Difference Between Shepherding and Disciple Making
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Practitioner's podcast. Where we're applying Jesus style, disciple making to everyday life. This episode in all our episodes are powered by Navigators, church Ministries, which focuses on helping churches make disciples. Who make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples.
For more information or to get connected, go to navigators church ministries.org. Today's episode is all about. The difference between shepherding and disciple making. It's perfect for anyone who is or ever has been confused about the difference between the two entities. Now, what's crazy about this is as a pastor, one of the mantles that I've put on many times in my life is that of Shepherd and many of us do, right?
If you're a pastor and you're listening to this, we have been calling ourselves shepherds for years. And, and that makes sense, right? Because if we look at scripture, we begin to understand that Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. John 10 11, right? In his last conversation with Peter, he repeatedly says, feed my sheep.
And Peter's redemption story, even the word pastor itself derives from the Latin word, which actually means shepherd. So the term shepherd is important and it is very clearly biblical. So why is it that while Jesus was both the good shepherd and a master disciple maker, many pastors are really content to just be the shepherd without actually making any disciples?
Yeah. Tony, this is a great question and a great episode to kind of figure out that difference because what I've seen many times it for pastors who have been pastors for a long time and who. View themselves primarily through that, that image or that paradigm. As a shepherd, there's often a, a big paradigm shift that has to take place so that they can not just be a shepherd, but also be a disciple maker.
And so what I'm gonna propose is that there's a problem with using shepherding and disciple making interchangeably. And many pastors do this either explicitly or implicitly. and they're okay with shepherding. And, and not making disciples really? And, and they wouldn't, wouldn't say that, right? I'm not saying that they would say that, but in terms of their ministry and what's being produced, they're content with the shepherding part.
And that the asking of the question, am I making disciples who are making other disciples doesn't come up? Because if they're viewing themselves through that, lens of a shepherd, It just becomes enough. So I'd say there's two real problems. I'm gonna share the first one. Tony can share the next one on kind of what, what's the problem with using this interchangeably?
The first problem, I think, is that it makes shepherding bigger than it ought to be. Mm-hmm. And so in this, in this discussion, the real problem is not shepherding. Shepherding is a good and biblical thing. It's not a problem of I of inclusion. It's a problem of emphasis. It's too much, right? The shepherding image doesn't stand alone in scripture because like any metaphor, it breaks down from different perspectives.
For example, Jesus shepherded his disciples, but you know, they were also his friends because they knew his business, the things that he got from his father. He shared with his disciples, you know, an actual shepherd wouldn't be sharing all the things of the sheep because, The, the business of being a shepherd ends with the sheep being slaughtered.
Right? And so it's not like the shepherd goes and says, Hey guys, you know, we're gonna fatten you up real good, but next week it's all coming to an end because that's what, the master wants. So there's a difference here. And so it's clear that the goal that Jesus had for his disciples was that they would become shepherds in the future.
So again, that first problem is it's an, it's an. Emphasis problem, non-inclusion problem. I love that. And I, I think it's important to, to look at both of these problems and also know that, that like so many things that we're, when we talk about on this podcast, we're not saying that shepherding is a bad thing.
Right. So that's really important. We're, we're not saying shepherding is, it's very important at times to be a shepherd, but we want to help you avoid the problems so that you can also be a master disciple maker. Live into that fullness of image that Christ created for us. So if the first problem is that we tend to make shepherding bigger than it ought to be, the second problem is our cultural understanding of a shepherd's role is vastly different.
From Jesus's. Now, when, when you think about Shepherd, what we also think about is typically is, is the heart, right? We think of that image of Jesus with the lamb around his neck so that he can hear the shepherd's heartbeat. You've probably all seen that painting before, right? We, we tend to, equate that to.
Gentleness and care and comfort, which are all godly and good attributes, but we can't do that without balancing out the direct speech, the challenge, the rebuke, right, that Jesus also included in caring for, you know, in discipling people. And so I think sometimes we forget that shepherding was a great metaphor for Jesus's time because.
Everyone knew the wholeness of that definition. I oftentimes think about the 23rd Psalm when David writes about, the rod and the staff, right? That's, that's the nature of the shepherd's tools. The rod and the staff. The staff would've been long and it had a, a crook on it, and it was designed to go get the lost, right?
We often think about the shepherd's staff. When we think about shepherding. We don't often think about the rod. The rod was like a three foot long thumper, right? And he would've used the, to keep the sheep in line, like it was a physical kind of knocking tool. And so oftentimes we want, the image of the shepherd without the fullness of the definition.
And that really causes a, a problem when we think about the master disciple maker in the fullness of Jesus's identity as the shepherd. Now we're gonna go into some of the differences and, talk a little bit about the differences in shepherd and disciple maker. Yep. So there's really four differences, at least four, between shepherds and disciple makers.
And again, these are shifts that oftentimes need to occur for somebody who primarily views themselves as a shepherd. Okay, so the first difference is shepherds tend to focus on developing contentment. Whereas disciple makers focus on developing Vision Shepherds focus on developing contentment. Disciple makers focus on developing vision.
So sense a shepherd focuses on the daily food and care. he can often lose sight of the big picture, right? A flock that's well fed and comfortable and satisfied are content, but without movement towards the master's purposes, then that flock's going to be stunted. They're not going to to become what the master desires for it to become.
Because remember, the shepherd is doing the work for the master, right? The shepherd doesn't have his own agenda. The shepherd's agenda should be the agenda of the master, but a disciple maker focuses on training. Right. So he must clearly see the master's purpose for the flock. And part of the, the disciple maker's job is to help the sheep see what the master sees for them, sees the future, right?
Sees what this development and growth is leading towards, right as they walk with their, their sheep. Day by day growth is happening and the master's vision becomes a reality. All right. Now again, it doesn't mean shepherds only have to develop contentment or that disciple makers. Should only develop vision, right?
A good disciple maker focuses on that training that develops vision for them, but also there's care involved, right? Of course. And so some of this we're talking about differences, and it's a difference, again, of emphasis, right? Not of inclusion. And so we should be including all of this, but if your focus is mostly on developing con contentment rather than training towards vision, then that's one of the differences that we're trying to highlight here in this episode.
Yeah. So if the first one is the difference between contentment and vision. The second one is difference on care and training, right? So shepherds focus on caring for the sheep disciple makers. Focus on training them. Let's kind of talk through this, right? The, the shepherd's main goal is to keep the, the flock together to keep everything in line.
Whereas if you're training someone as a disciple maker, your main goal is gonna be completely different. The goal is to actually send them out so they can operate on their own. Think about the Luke's gospel. When Jesus sends out the 72, he does that as a way to train them. You don't ever hear of a shepherd gathering his flock together.
Saying, okay, go out, visit all the cities and then come back to me when you're ready. The difference is because Shepherds care for sheep disciple makers train the disciple, and each of us in our role as pastors or church leaders, we have to be able to do both and to know when it's time to care and when it's time to train.
And that requires a little bit of intentionality. Of course, it requires relationship. You know, you might want to check out some of our other episodes on. on how to play offense and defense as a disciple maker. That's kind of this similar idea. Yeah. The third one, shepherd's focus on satisfying the sheep.
Disciple makers focus on stretching them. So you can see even going through these differences thematically, they're, they're broadly the same, right? We're talking about some of the same themes, but as we get into the specificity of it, there's some difference. There's some shades of difference here. And so on this one, shepherds normally believe that peace and satisfaction yield growth.
It's a, a common belief among pastors. I've had a pastor tell me, you know, I learned long ago, That the best thing I can do is love my people and visit them when they're in need and preach the word, and they believe that's all they needed to do is preach the word, love them, and care for the people they were leading.
And they believed that that would yield to growth. But the problem was, and this particular church, even though this pastor had been doing this for decades, at the point he was talking to me, they hadn't been seeing generational fruit. They hadn't been seeing disciple makers emerge and make other disciples.
And, actually I think there's some danger here, right? If we're just focusing on peace and satisfaction, there's some danger. Anda 13 six says it this way, I think it illustrates it really well. the problem of satisfied sheep, and it says this, when I fed them, they were satisfied. When they were satisfied, they became proud.
Then they forgot me, right? This is the Lord speaking in that verse. So satisfaction sometimes leads people away from God, not, not necessarily towards him, and it doesn't always have to be that way, but instead of yielding growth, it can lead to that movement that's moving away from who God is and independence on him.
Now, on the other side of it, disciple makers know that growth is often the result of stretching. And circumstances of experiences that kind of get them out of their comfort zone. So instead of focusing on satisfying the sheep, disciple makers sometimes will focus on stretching them. And so disciple makers first reaction in difficult times isn't to fix the problem or to make it comfortable.
Instead, the disciple maker will prayerfully engage with God and ask, how can I walk alongside this person to accomplish what you're trying to do in their life right now? And sometimes those circumstances are meant to help that disciple become more dependent on God and to lean into what God is trying to do in them and some of the things that that God and the Holy Spirit is trying to surface in them.
So again, to summarize the this third difference shepherd's focus on satisfying the sheep disciple makers. Focus on stretching them. The fourth difference has to do with, Growth and flow. So shepherds focus on growing the flock. Disciple makers focus on flowing the flock and that was really hard for me to say.
So I just want everyone to take a minute and appreciate that, that I didn't flub that up cuz I was really nervous about it. So let's dive into it, right? Shepherds believe that a healthy flock will grow, right as sheer content. They'll invite others in, who'll invite others in. This happens, right? And, and that.
Misses the aim of the, the master of the flock when we think about it in our faith, right? Disciple makers believe that mature sheep are ready to be sent out to others. Maur mature. Good night. I got the heart. He loved that one up. Come on. I did. Look, that's pride goes before the fall, so, okay. But anyway, the, the important part is, is that.
Disciple makers know that mature sheep are ready to be sent out to others and, and what disciple makers know is that we're called to be a part of a movement. It's designed to have steady flow. Honestly, I think that this is really important when we think about the local church because so often we're just trying to bring, bring people in instead of sending people out.
Imagine how different the world would look if instead of being shepherds to the flock, we were sending the flock out into the world. To go out and train others. This is such a gift, and I think it's an important difference that we all have to pay attention to. Yeah. Tony, I think this is a good place, right to, as we've heard these four differences, to talk a little bit about how this manifests itself in the local church and for our pastors who are listening.
Right. This isn't an episode to try to point fingers or to. You know, make critical statements about those of you who primarily identify as shepherds or who really resonate with that imagery and scripture. shepherding is important, right? That, that type of ministry is important. But what I've learned and notice is that as a pastor, pastors are in a, a hard place when it comes to shepherding and disciple making because most inner congregations, which have expectations of the pastor and those expectations, Often are around this sort of shepherding only, right?
And so evaluations, the way pastors are evaluated, well, are you showing up at ho at the hospital before surgeries, et cetera, et cetera. Or are you sending somebody else? It's not even a, a, an an issue of whether you're going or not or somebody else. It's an issue of whether it's you. You gotta be the one.
And yet at the same time, there's all those care. Expectations. there are little to no expectations around disciple making. And so when it comes to performance reviews, when it comes to all that sort of stuff, feedback about how it's going, you know, it's the shepherding stuff that's getting evaluated and the disciple making stuff normally isn't.
And what we measure tends to grow, right? It tends to, to grow, tends to take our focus, our energy, et cetera, et cetera. And the expectation that we feel inside. often reflects what we're being evaluated on. Tony, you've been a local pastor for many years now. Talk to us a little bit about what your experience has been with this sort of, kind of issue of the shepherding disciple making.
Well, I'll, I'll be honest, one of the hardest parts for me about the idea of shepherding is that, when you're constantly thinking about the flock that's there, it's hard to pay attention to who's not there. It's hard to, it's hard to pay attention to. To the person that you're trying to train. Right? And, and we've talked about this before in the serving training illustration.
you can give your time to the crowds like is required if you're going to shepherd. But the, the real fruit comes in the small numbers. And so one of the things that I tell pastors all the time is that you, you can be a really good shepherd, with. Delegation. Right? And so both of these things are important.
They're both core to your identity and your pastoral relationship. But one of the boundaries that I had to set for myself pretty early on is that I was only gonna go do some of the, the more, caregiving kind of things when it became end of life care. So a, as a shepherd, I was there when it really became urgent.
Or, became kind of dire straits and it, it, it was a little bit of a joke at my congregation towards the end of my time there. But, but what I appreciated is that it gave me space to make more disciples, and those disciples oftentimes were the ones who helped me with the shepherding. Yeah, yeah. You know, as you started that and talking about, Not just caring for those who are there, but those who aren't.
And brought to mind a couple verses that, you know, at first might be in contrast, we might think of them as kind of opposed to one another, but it's really when we think about, not inclusion, but emphasis. Right? And so the first one is when Jesus says in, in Luke 1910, for the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.
Mm-hmm. Right? So there we see him talking about, well, I'm here to move towards those who aren't even apart yet. They're not even in here yet. They're out there lost, et cetera, et cetera. And the loss in that context, is not necessarily just those who are lost from, from Israel, but those who are lost from God.
Right. And then when we think of the other verse, or I did, which you were talking about how Jesus would recommending leaving the 99 for the one. Okay. And. Well, those 100 are those who are already in, and he's saying, well, sometimes it's important to leave all the 99 to go rescue the one who's wandered off.
And so I, I'm speaking before this fully formed in my mind, so I don't normally do this on the podcast, but what I'm thinking about is how do these fit together? Right? Jesus clearly had a deep heart for those who were already a part of the flock. Caring for them, helping them grow, genuinely moving toward them, towards maturity.
But he also cared for those who didn't yet know God and wanted to move towards them and have time to be with them and all that. And I think that in this, episode around the differences of shepherding and disciple making, I think that's an important point, right? Is that if we're too far on. Disciple making that we're only doing evangelism and helping those who respond and never helping those who have been around and never really been invested in, that's not, that's not a picture that Jesus gave us.
But on the other hand, if we're only caring for those who have been around and we're not really developing them and helping them grow so that they can help others and going out and reaching the loss both with them and with others. That's not the picture that Jesus, Jesus gave us either. So, Tony, am I making any sense here?
What, what are you hearing me say? Yeah, what, what I hear clearly, and I think what I hope we all hear clearly is that we have to live in the tension and, and we have to understand, which is our takeaway today, that shepherding and disciple making are not the same. They're both important, but they're not the same.
Shepherding and disciple making are not the same. Today's action step. Is is one that we use fairly often on things like this. Take some time to evaluate your ministry and ask the question, am I shepherding people or am I making disciples? Am I doing both? Am I focusing on emphasizing one more than the other?
Is there a wholeness to my ministry that needs to be rounded out? So take some time. You know, we pray obviously that this is helpful for you. If you need some help around this topic, if you've got questions or concerns, all the links to get in contact with us is in the show notes. We wanna walk with you as you discern this very important idea and all the ideas that we discuss here.
We're so thankful for you and we can't wait to connect with you guys real soon.