But any seasoned ministry veteran will tell you that pastoral ministry is very often less like herding sheep and more like herding cats. The prophet Isaiah says that “all we like sheep have gone astray” (53:6), and I wonder if it’s because he wasn’t around cats very much. Sheep tend to go astray because they are dumbly distracted. That’s a little like us. But cats go astray because they are smug investors in their own narcissistic autonomy. That’s a lot like us.
