Do You Need A Congregation to be a Pastor

This is a guest post from Matt Willmington, the Director of Ministries at TRBC in Lynchburg VA and a ministry trainer at Liberty University.

 A teacher with no flock ends up with himself and faceless debaters as the audience. It births arrogance. 

Flockless teaching encourages thoughtless opinions and brazen judgements on other pastors, teachers, and leaders. It emboldens the teacher, making him think he can say anything.

A flockless teacher labors for mentions, retweets, follows and hits. A teacher with a flock labors for life change.

A false teacher who is trying to make disciples of a bad doctrine is more respectable than a flockless teacher who is passionate only about his own voice.

A teacher needs a flock, not an audience. A flock grounds teaching into the soil of the heart. An audience just looks for teaching that tickles ears.

A teacher with an audience feeds appetite. A teacher with a flock feeds hunger.

A teacher can teach an audience with no love. He cannot teach a flock ultimately without love. Love roots teaching in reality. It moves it from flashy theory to real life.

A teacher is a fountain and teaching is water. But without a flock, his teaching will become a swamp.

Teach – but teach a flock. Shepherd the flock that is among you.

When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:34 ESV)

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