What the World Wants

The following is excerpted from Shepherds Balm by Rich Earl, a dynamic pastors 52 week devotional tool.
Copies may be obtained at ShepherdsBalm.com for $9.99 plus $2.75 shipping.


When the Good Shepherd appeared in
Galilee, the contrast between him and the
other shepherds was perceived at once. There was
sympathy in Jesus’ tone and gentleness in his touch
which proved at once that he was with the people in
their sorrows and upward strivings. The chief
trouble with the modern church is that in too many
localities it has lost contact with the life of the town.
It is out of touch with the souls of men in their present
perplexities and needs, and hence it cannot
influence them.
The impression is abroad that Christianity is a
pretty speech, a bit of idealism, a lovely dream, a
stanza of poetry, a piece of Sunday acting, something
that the preacher can say by rote, and to which the
saints can say, “Amen”; and not a sober, serious,
week-day life. What the world most wants today is
shepherding. The world has many comforts, luxuries
in abundance; what it lacks is love. Love cannot be
satisfactorily expressed to our generation in printer's
ink, in evangelistic appeals, in pulpit eloquence, or in
doctrinal statements. The expression which the
world now demands is the love of the shepherd who
takes the lambs in his bosom, who gently leads those
who have their young, and who day by day lays down
his life for the sheep.
A genuine Christian is the only epistle which the world now
cares to read. Multitudes care little for worship, less
for church polity, still less for creeds, nothing for
traditions and ceremonies. Character is everything.
Shepherding work is the work for which humanity is
crying.
— Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd, pp.
103-104

“ I'll set shepherd-leaders over them who will take good
care of them. They won't live in fear or panic anymore.
All the lost sheep rounded up!” God's Decree.
— Jeremiah 23:4 (The Message)