Counsel Your Flock: Fulfilling Your Role as a Teaching Shepherd
Overview
“One of the surest signs of the blessing of God upon His people is the gift of spiritual shepherds who faithfully care for His flock,” writes Paul Tautges. Sadly, pastors today have become business professionals who are no longer content to shepherd their flocks by teaching the Word of God and caring for their souls, but instead farm their people out to psychological counselors, who are incapable of meeting the real needs of people. Here is an urgent appeal for teaching shepherds to return to authentic biblical ministry: to be tenacious in their study and preaching of the whole counsel of God, and tender in their application of its demands to the lives of God’s sheep through the personal and pastoral ministry of counseling. In his companion book, Counsel One Another, Paul defended the role of every believer in the discipleship process; here he concentrates on the specific ministry of pastors and elders, particularly their role in leading God’s flock to spiritual maturity and equipping it for effective service. He reminds ministers that they have a privileged responsibility to function as under shepherds for Christ, the Chief Shepherd, but those who are faithful will receive an eternal reward.
Top Highlights
“Effective shepherding consists of caring for the overall spiritual well-being of God’s sheep, which requires feeding them the Word of God, leading them by example into paths of righteousness for His name’s sake, and protecting them from spiritual hazards.” (Page 14)
“Warren Wiersbe: ‘Keep in mind that the harvest is not the end of the meeting: it is the end of the age.’11” (Page 32)
“Clearly, God’s expectation is that we attend to His sheep. To do so, we must heed Solomon’s counsel to ‘Know well the condition of [our] flocks, and pay attention to [our] herds’ (Prov. 27:23). If we as shepherds do not know our sheep, how can we properly care for them? And how can we care for them without feeding them?” (Page 15)
“If repentance must begin with the household of God, then, even more so, repentance must take place in the pastor’s study, his counseling room, and his pulpit. My fellow minister, that is what this book is all about.” (Page 18)
“Suffering enhances ministry because it produces a common ground on which to relate to others who are in the midst of the same types of trials that we have already experienced and endured.” (Page 28)
- Title: Counsel Your Flock: Fulfilling Your Role as a Teaching Shepherd
- Author: Paul Tautges
- Series: Ministering the Master’s Way
- Publisher: Day One
- Print Publication Date: 2009
- Logos Release Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Pastoral counseling; Christian life
- ISBNs: 9781846251542, 1846251540
- Resource ID: LLS:COUNSFLOCK
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:59:03Z