Shepherding and Church Size

This past week in preparing to preach on Ezekiel 34 I came across this provocative comment in Ian Duguid’s helpful commentary:

“If we are to return to truly being shepherds, perhaps we need to reconsider our love affair with big churches.  It is possible to lord it over a flock of thousands; it is possible to herd a flock of hundreds; but is it really possible to pastor a congregation of more than about two hundred?  At the very least, within larger churches we need consciously to create subcongregations of this size or smaller, in which real shepherding takes place, where loving concern and care is expressed and strong, scriptural accountability is exercised.” (400)

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