One of the questions that comes up from time to time when we talk about serving as “ranchers” instead of “shepherds” as we lead our churches is: “Is the idea of multiplying ourselves biblical? After all, didn’t Jesus call Himself the Good Shepherd?” The answer to those questions is, “Yes! Jesus did call Himself the Good Shepherd, and He laid down His life for the sheep. And Jesus called us to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything He commanded them.” In order to do that we must multiply ourselves.
In addition, we find three different words used for church leaders in the New Testament: pastors/shepherds, overseers/bishops, and elders. We find passages where all three concepts are put together to refer to one group of leaders, as when the Apostle Paul gave his final instructions to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. He calls them overseers, elders and tells them to watch over the sheep God has entrusted to them, which is the function of a shepherd. Therefore, there is nothing inherently biblical about restricting ourselves to the idea of one pastor who watches over one small flock of sheep.
Much of the church structure we see in the various churches across the world have little to do with biblical mandate. For example the hierarchical structures of the catholic and episcopal churches reflects the overseer aspect of church leadership, but not necessarily the pastoral, and certainly not the elder role. The elder-driven models of the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions actually have the pastor serving “under” them in many case, while even when the pastor is an “equal” he or she is often charged with doing most of the ministry.
The point is not to debate models of church polity, but simply to say in the early church which grew rapidly, the Apostle Paul multiplied himself many times, and charged Timothy to do the same in the local church he served. The idea of multiplying ourselves is seen most clearly in Ephesians 4 where the Apostle Paul reminds us that Jesus gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. That means every saint, every Christian is to carry out the work of ministry, which is an obvious multiplication model.
Many reasons can be given for the average church in America to have 89 adult members (The number comes from recent Barna research.), but one of the primary reasons is that’s about the leadership capacity of a local church using the shepherd model of ministry. Again, my goal is not to advocate for larger or smaller churches, only to advocate for biblical leadership models that give us the greatest opportunity to carry out the Great Commission. I hope wherever you are on the spectrum of leadership, that you will take the time to stop to reflect on whether how you are leading is giving your church the best opportunity to reach the most people with the Good News of Jesus. As I mentioned on Monday, whether we think as a shepherd or a rancher will have a great deal of impact on the number of people we can reach in Jesus’ name.
Here’s to leading better by multiplying our impact among the saints–today!