feeding the flock

There was the lunch-time service again today.

So the bulk of the morning was given over to preparation. For that service, but also for the three services this coming Sunday (there's an afternoon communion service as well this week), and for the Scripture Union group tomorrow over lunch.

Preparation is important. I came across this little piece from Nigel Pollock today (you can read it in its entirety here) -

The primary job of the pastor is to feed the flock. You may be relieved to know that we don’t have to become celebrity chefs. But we do need to cook. The best cuisine usually involves fresh local produce, some basic principles in practice and a bit of creative flair.

I believe in presentation, in creativity, in ambience, in hospitality, in conversation and in humour. But a dinner party with all these things brilliantly done but without food will leave the guests hungry. And hungry guests leave.

If we want to see the flock fed we need to spend time working with the food. Thinking about how we nourish those who are coming not just how we entertain or stimulate them.

Spiritual babies need pure spiritual milk, and our desire is to move people on in maturity so that they can digest adult food. I meet many people struggling to stay spiritually alive in the workplace because they are malnourished. Junk food and snacking can keep you going for a while but a junk food diet will not lead to health and wholeness in the long-term.

I commented to a group of Kiwi pastors that I was concerned that preaching was not a priority in many churches. One of them spoke to me afterwards to put me straight. “Preaching IS a priority in my ministry. It is definitely in the top ten, probably number four or five”. I asked him how he would feel about going to a restaurant that put food as its fourth or fifth priority. He said that he probably wouldn’t want to go but that he didn’t see my point. Which kind of was my point.

So, fellow chefs, shepherds and spiritual caterers, what I am trying to work out in all this is:

When Jesus tells Peter to “feed his lambs”, what did he mean and how do we do that today?

When Peter and Paul speak about milk and solid food, how do we provide appropriate nourishment that helps people grow to maturity in our preaching?

My primary job is to feed the flock. And that means giving some considerable time to what in culinary terms is called simply 'food preparation'.

But 'feeding the flock' is also what pastoral work, as well as the preaching and teaching, is all about. And most days, too, there's a fair amount of that going on.

Today's been no exception. A range of different people, with some very different needs, and facing a number of different issues. And all of them needing 'fed'.

I have to assess what their 'dietary' needs presently are. Some aren't able to stomach much more than what Scripture describes as just 'milk'. The most basic of spiritual truths, in an easily digested form.

There's been some of that today. Folk who in terms of their knowledge of God are still at the infancy stage. Their sometimes barely embryonic faith is a fragile thing. But it still needs fed, and the 'food' that is needed requires to be fed in a thoroughly 'liquidised' form.

I've watched the gradual progress in the way that Isla's fed. The way in which, as she grows a bit, she's moved on from merely milk. Feeding becomes a bit of a messy performance. And the food that she's eating is pureed and basic and bland.

But it's helping her grow. And the care that her Mum always takes (it's mainly her!) to ensure that her diet is good is exactly the care that a preacher and pastor must also be always displaying.

Feeding the flock is always the primary job of the pastor.