Becoming a Grand Champion Church

The hayrack quakes over the uneven ground as Uncle Howard maneuvers the train of tractor, baler and hayrack toward the first windrow of hay.  The sun is high and hot.  The air scented with the pleasantly sweet aroma of drying alfalfa.  Uncle Howard revs the tractor engine and engages the power take off which brings the baler to life. Balers are marvelously complex machines.  As the tractor moves along the windrow, the hay is gently picked up, sectioned, compressed, measured, and wrapped with twine.  The resulting 40-pound bale then rides up a short chute ready to be picked up and stacked. David and I wait at the chute for the bales of hay to emerge. We are miles away from our flock. They are either enjoying the shade of the apple tree or grazing in the pasture. However, David and I have our sights on the coming winter and the need to feed our sheep until the pasture is green again. The routine of grab and stack continues until the rack is full, five high and a tie.  Later in the day these bales will be lifted into the haymow of the barn and stacked alongside bales of golden straw to wait the coming of winter.

I also recall another hot summer week.  It was a few years earlier during Vacation Bible School.  Along with the crafts and songs my age group was tasked with memorizing Psalm 23.  It was hard.  Each day a new verse was added, repeated, and practiced. At the closing program our class stood and recited in unison.  I did not realize it at the time but those verses dropped into the haymow of my mind, ready to be used when needed along with the other verses memorized while growing up.  One other thing I recall about memorizing Psalm 23 was trying to figure out what “I shall not want” means.  My young mind could not wrap itself around the poetic meaning of that simple phrase.

There is an implication that must be defined in order to understand what “I shall not want” means.    It goes something like this - Because the Lord is my shepherd, and He is a good shepherd, I will not lack anything that is needed.  The big question that must be settled is what are the things that are needed.  David expands those areas of need throughout the rest of the psalm.  For this chapter it is sufficient to look at the whole and not the parts.
Who determines the needs of the flock, the sheep or circumstances or the shepherd?  That is the question that must be answered both in our personal walk with the Lord and for the flock of Christ.  Since our focus is on the flock, let’s consider each in that light.
Do sheep determine their own needs?  In some sense of course they do. There are base needs that all humans share, the need to belong, the need for security, and the need for the essentials of food and water. But the larger question is can the flock determine what it needs on its own? No.  The appetites of the moment generally shout down wisdom and foresight. One example can be found during the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites.  They grew tired of the God provided manna and grumbled for meat like they had in Egypt.  God heard their grumblings and gave them so much quail that it lasted for a whole month (Numbers 11), or as scripture poetically records – until it came out of their noses.  This is not to infer that leadership should never listen to or seek the advice of the flock. Individuals will often rightly express their lack of some basic need but they may not understand how the Lord has planned to meet that need.  For instance, the statement “I don’t get anything out the sermon anymore” might be an indication that God desires to wean that person. To move them off of milk and onto feed that will require effort and discipline on their part.  Therefore, while the flock will be able to recognize where needs exist they may not see how the Good Shepherd plans to satisfy those needs.