Part One - The Chief Shepherd & His Under-Shepherds
Series introduction: Under-Shepherding!
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want [Psalm 23:1 KJV].
There are people sat in churches every week who are starving in the middle of food. Not because the Word isn’t powerful — it is. Not because Christ doesn’t care — He does. But because somewhere along the line, the shepherds stopped shepherding.
The lost are lost because the shepherds have forsaken them. The hurting are hurting because no-one has bound them up. The wandering are wandering because no-one has gone after them. And God’s heart on the matter has never changed — Shepherd my people. Feed them. Guard them. Care for them.
This series is a call back to basics. A call back to the heart of the Chief Shepherd. A call back to the quiet, costly, daily work of caring for the sheep of God in the local church — the flock that the Lord Jesus Christ purchased with His own blood. And it stands on a promise God still means today — And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding [Jeremiah 3:15 KJV].
Over five sessions we’re going to lay our hands back on the Bible pattern for caring for souls. Not a clever new model. Not the latest church-growth strategy. The pattern Christ Himself laid down, lived out, and left in the hands of His body.
This series is for pastors and elders — yes. But it is also for small-group leaders, youth workers, ministry helpers, Sunday school teachers, prayer partners, and every ordinary believer who has ever felt the weight of someone else’s walk with God on their heart. If you have ever cared about a soul beyond your own, this series is for you.
The aim is plain:
To recover a Bible understanding of under-shepherding.
To expose what happens when shepherds forsake the sheep.
To equip the church to feed, guard, and care for one another.
To turn hearers of the Word into doers of it — But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only [James 1:22 KJV].
By the end of these five sessions, the goal is not that we know more about shepherding. The goal is that we do it — in our homes, in our pews, in our small groups, in our pulpits, and in our prayers. Because the sheep are His. We just look after them for a little while.
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work [Colossians 1:10 KJV].
Welcome to the series. Let’s get back to basics…
Part One - The Chief Shepherd & His Under-Shepherds
Whose sheep are they anyway?
Before the church can talk about under-shepherds, it must talk about the Shepherd. Everything else flows from Him. Get Him wrong, and everything downstream goes wrong with Him. Get Him right, and the rest begins to fall into place.
We live in a day when people are happy to discuss leadership models, church-growth strategies, podcasts on pastoring, and conferences on calling — yet barely mention the Man whose flock it actually is. So before we say one more word about under-shepherds, we have to look up.
Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, and the Chief Shepherd — I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep [John 10:11 KJV]. He did not come to manage the sheep — He came to die for them. He did not come to count them — He came to call them by name. He did not come to be served by them — He came to lay down His life so they could live.
That is the Shepherd we follow. That is the Shepherd we represent. And anyone claiming to shepherd in His name had better know what kind of Man stands at the head of the flock.
An under-shepherd is not the owner
Here is where many in the modern church have quietly gone wrong. The flock is not ours. It never was. It belongs to Christ — the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood [Acts 20:28 KJV].
Read those words slowly. His own blood. Not our preaching. Not our charisma. Not our branding. The price-tag on every soul in the local church was paid in the wounds of the Son of God. And the moment a pastor, an elder, a leader, or an ordinary believer forgets that, the work begins to drift.
An under-shepherd is a steward. Trusted. Accountable. Answerable. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away [1 Peter 5:4 KJV]. There is a day of reckoning coming for every man and every woman God has placed over a portion of His flock. Not a performance review. A reckoning.
Yet many today stand in pulpits as though they own the sheep. They drive them. They brand them. They monetise them. They ignore them. They build platforms on their backs and call it ministry. But the sheep are not theirs. They are His. And one day — He will ask what we did with them. That question alone should sober every leader, and every believer who loves a soul, into a different posture.
The pattern given to the church
God has not left the church guessing on this. The pattern is plain in His Word — laid out, repeated, and recorded for the body to follow until the Chief Shepherd appears.
The pattern:
Christ is the Head — the head of the body, the church [Colossians 1:18 KJV].
Pastors and teachers are gifts from Christ — And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers [Ephesians 4:11 KJV].
Every believer has a part — we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another [Romans 12:5 KJV].
Notice what is missing from that pattern. No celebrity. No empire. No spiritual middle-man standing between the sheep and the Shepherd. Just Christ at the head, gifts from Christ to equip the body, and a body where every member matters.
Under-shepherding is not a club for the few. It is a calling on the body. Some are appointed to it as their main work — pastors, elders, teachers — and they will give a stricter account. But every believer is involved in it as a way of life. The believer who prays faithfully for another. The older woman who walks alongside the younger. The home-group leader who chases up the one who stopped coming. The quiet saint who stands beside someone on a hard day. That is under-shepherding too — it is the body caring for the body, under the eye of its Head.
What an under-shepherd looks like
If we want to know what an under-shepherd should look like, we look at the Chief Shepherd. He is the pattern. Anything that calls itself shepherding but does not look like Him is something else wearing the name.
A true under-shepherd:
Goes after the one that wanders — [Luke 15:4 KJV].
Knows the sheep by name — [John 10:3 KJV].
Leads — he does not drive — [John 10:4 KJV].
Lays down his life — [John 10:11 KJV].
Feeds the lambs and the sheep — [John 21:15–17 KJV].
If the man behind the pulpit, the elder in the meeting, the leader in the small group, the believer in the next pew does not look anything like that — something has been forgotten. And if anything is to change in the local church, it begins with that picture being recovered, prayed over, and walked out.
What it will cost — and why it is worth it
Shepherding like Christ is costly. It costs time, prayer, patience, sleep, tears, and the steady offering of yourself for souls who may not always notice or thank you. I will very gladly spend and be spent for you [2 Corinthians 12:15 KJV] is not a slogan — it is a working description of the call.
But the cost is not the end of the story. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away [1 Peter 5:4 KJV]. Nothing done for His sheep, in His name, by His Spirit, is ever wasted. He sees the unseen prayers, the unnoticed visits, the unheard conversations, the quiet acts of love poured out on souls He bought with His own blood — and He keeps the record Himself.
Walk-it-out step
Before you ever try to shepherd a soul, sit at the feet of the Chief Shepherd. Read [John 10 KJV] slowly this week — once with a pen, once on your knees. Let Him show you what kind of Shepherd He really is — and then ask Him plainly: Lord, make me that kind of under-shepherd.
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work [Colossians 1:10 KJV].
God bless you — and remember: the sheep are His. We just look after them for a little while…
Key Takeaways:
Christ Himself is the Chief Shepherd — every under-shepherd answers to Him [John 10:11 KJV].
The flock is not ours; it is His, purchased with His own blood [Acts 20:28 KJV].
Under-shepherds are stewards, accountable on the day He appears [1 Peter 5:1–4 KJV].
God’s pattern for the church is Christ as Head, gifted leaders to equip, and every member playing a part [Ephesians 4:11–13 KJV], [Colossians 1:18 KJV].
A true under-shepherd looks like the Chief Shepherd — going after, knowing, leading, laying down, and feeding the sheep [John 10:3–4, 11 KJV], [John 21:15–17 KJV].
