Shepherds Always Lead from the Front

Timothy Witmer:

The story is told about a group of tourists in Israel who had been informed by their Israeli tour guide, after observing a flock and their shepherd, that shepherds always lead their flocks from the front. He told his attentive listeners that they never “drive” the sheep from behind.

A short time later they drove past a flock along the road where the shepherd was walking behind them. The tourists quickly called this to their guide’s attention and he stopped the bus to step out and have a word with the “shepherd.”

As he boarded the bus he had a sheepish grin on his face and announced to his eager listeners, “that wasn’t the shepherd, that was the butcher!

—Timothy Z. Witmer, The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church (P&R, 2010), 156.

Dr. Witmer’s next book, The Shepherd Leader at Home: Knowing, Leading, Protecting, and Providing for Your Family, is due out from Crossway in September 2012.