This past Sunday delegates
from all district churches came together in Chatham for the Campmeeting
Organizing Committee. Elders Randy Saunders and Clara Baptiste co-chaired the
meeting. As a devotional thought elder Baptiste
reflected on Jesus’ commission to apostle Peter recorded in the gospel of John
chapter 21:15-17, where Jesus invited Peter to “feed my lambs” first, and then
repeats twice more ”feed my sheep” as an expected response to the question “Do
you love me?”
I could not help but smile
as just a couple of weeks ago I said that “if you call me “pastor” I must call
you “sheep”! Sheep Charles, sheep
George, sheep Zak, sheep Randy, sheep Jonathan.
We don’t really do that, but we call leaders “pastors” still, as they
are metaphorically are shepherds of the flock.
Many allusions come from this imagery – its sheep that birth lambs, and
the flock should grow not by shepherds stealing sheep from other flocks, but by
sheep producing new sheep. Shepherds are
responsible to fight wolves, to guide the flock to good pastures, to be good
under-shepherds of the Owner of all flocks, Jesus Christ, the Good
shepherd. Jesus told his shepherds-in-training,
used to be fishermen, that there is a “pretend shepherds” – hirelings, who flee
when the danger comes, because they don’t really care to protect the flock from
wolves (John 10:12-13), but the true shepherd will lay his life down for the
sheep (John 10:15).
It was the word “lambs”
that we focused on last Sunday. The very first appeal of Jesus was to feed the
lambs (arnia in Greek), and only
after comes tending sheep (probata in
Greek). Lambs are “baby-sheep,” those
who are not probate yet, those who are yet to be confirmed and validated.
As delegates went around
the table sharing their expectations from the campmeeting, an elder from the
North London, Gwen, shared how their church implemented learning from “Growing
Young” presentations – passing the keys to the next generation is their guiding
value.
Friends, are we feeding our
“lambs”? What importance is placed in
our budget for our youth and our children?
Are we investing sufficiently in discipling, mentoring, resoursing,
supporting, feeding our lambs? We call
little pennies we give as donation to children ministry “lambs offering”. The first Commission of Jesus to Peter, which
is instructive to all the following generations was “feed my Lambs!”
Dear church family,
whatever we do, let’s keep our youngest as our top priority, let’s make sense
for our children and youth, let’s consider their questions and interest, and
instead of demanding “seniors’ rights and privileges,” lets spend more time with our youth. You will grow younger in the process! As the Nominating time is on the horizon,
please consider how we invest in mentoring and feeding our “lambs.”
