Have you ever noticed that the life of a shepherd is quieter than most of us imagine? As a matter of fact, when was the last time you witnessed a shepherd in the pasture with their sheep? It’s not a site you see often due to its off-grid placement, but it also serves as a metaphor for our daily lives. Similar to shepherds, we have been blessed with our own pastures that allow us to care for our people, families, and responsibilities.
Something to note here is that pastures don’t buzz with excitement. There are no flashing lights, smoke machines, conference stages, big screens, elite audio/visual presentations, and no applause. There is only open space, slow rhythms of grass swaying in the breeze, sweat from the work of herding, and the quiet call to keep watch over the sheep.
It’s in the pasture where one can pay closer attention to the sheep in their fold. Many are not called to the hard obscure mission of the pasture. It’s a hard, demanding, and weighty position. I often think about the intimate dinner Jesus had with Peter after the resurrection. I can see Jesus looking his disciple in the eyes before giving him the great command, as it was time to restore Peter. When Jesus restored Peter on the shore of Galilee, he did not hand him a 100-page strategic plan or a list of ministry metrics to obsess over. Jesus gave him one task:
Look at John 21:15-27
“Feed my Sheep.”
It was a singular call, profound in its simplicity and demanding in its constancy. Therefore, it is inherent in the essence of pastoral ministry and Christian mission itself. Whether one is a local pastor, a missionary in a faraway field, or a believer shepherding their own family, the pasture is where God calls us, where He molds us, and where He steadies us.
I'd like to take the rest of the article to unpack three key notes briefly. They are not glamorous notes, but they form the melody of God’s shepherding mission: simplicity, ordinariness, and consistency—a framework I was given by my dear friend, Steve Gunter.
One sec….Don’t think of these like bullet points in a leadership manual, but more like notes in a jazz tune. Each on its own is modest, but together they create a harmony that echoes the voice of the Good Shepherd.
Note 1: Simplicity
The first truth of pasture life is its simplicity. Pastoral ministry, at its heart, is about God’s people.
Jesus’ words to Peter remain our central charge:
“Feed my sheep.”
Of course, ministry can be complicated. Congregations have budgets, buildings, conflicts, and crises. The same in our own households. But beneath all of that lies one unchanging reality: God entrusts shepherds with people. The task is not scattered across a hundred goals but unified in one: to tend the flock.
Eugene Peterson, in The Contemplative Pastor, wrote that pastors must be “unbusy.”¹ This is not a simple statement to live by because it implies we are willing to unearth the Babylonian system in us. By that, he did not mean idle, but undistracted—resisting the constant pull toward programs, strategies, and reputations. The shepherd is called to be fully present to the sheep, not lost in administrative noise or cultural expectations.
John Piper struck a similar chord in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.² He argued that the pastor is not called to be a corporate manager, a motivational speaker, or a religious CEO. The pastor is called to be a shepherd, absorbed in the Word of God and in the care of souls. To professionalize ministry, Piper insists, is to trade the pasture for the office, the sheepfold for the boardroom.
In a society obsessed with productivity and numbers, simplicity is itself a form of resistance. It insists that ministry is about souls, not spreadsheets. It holds fast to the truth that the shepherd’s success is measured not in platforms or applause, but in the flourishing of the flock.
Simplicity reminds us: one task, one flock, one pasture.
Note 2: Ordinary (Ordinariness)
If simplicity names the task, ordinariness names the setting. Pastoral ministry does not usually take place on stages or in spotlight moments. It happens in kitchens, hospital rooms, coffee shops, and pews (or modern) that creak on Sunday mornings.
The pasture is not glamorous. Sheep don’t applaud their shepherd. They don’t marvel at the skill of the one who tends them (Psalm 78:72). They wander, they graze, they require patience. Much of shepherding is repetitive and unseen.
The apostle Paul urged the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:11)
“aspire to live quietly, and to work with your hands”
Christian ministry often flourishes in such obscurity. Karl Barth once described the pastor’s task as “a small, quiet work, done faithfully for these people, in this place.”³ That line captures the essence of ordinariness.
At times, our modern life can distract us away from this reality. Eugene Peterson criticized the modern tendency to view pastors as “religious managers,” constantly chasing relevance.⁴ Against that backdrop, ordinariness is not weakness but faithfulness. It is the courage to stay small, to live in hidden places, to believe that God works most powerfully through quiet faithfulness.
Jesus himself lived this way. For thirty years, the Son of God lived an unremarkable carpenter’s life in Nazareth working with wood, eating meals, walking in obscurity. When he entered public ministry, it was not as a celebrity but as a carpenter from a forgotten village.
Ordinariness is not a detour from God’s mission. It is the very soil in which God’s kingdom grows.
Note 3: Consistent
If simplicity is the focus and ordinariness is the setting, consistency is the rhythm. Shepherds cannot appear only when it feels inspiring. Sheep require daily attention for feeding, guiding, protecting, and correcting.
Paul put it plainly in 1 Corinthians 4:2:
“It is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”
Faithfulness is not occasional brilliance but steady presence. It is showing up, day after day, week after week, year after year.
This steady rhythm mirrors God’s own covenantal consistency with His people.
Jeremiah sang of this in Lamentations 3:22-23,
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning”
God’s faithfulness is not seasonal, it is unbroken. His mercies do not take days off.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together, described Christian community as built not on extraordinary experiences but on daily practices: prayer, Scripture, confession, service.⁵ Ministry, likewise, grows in the repetition of ordinary acts done faithfully. Consistency is unglamorous. It rarely draws applause. But it builds something lasting a people formed into maturity in Christ.
The Weight of the Pasture
But let us be honest: life in the pasture is not without hardship. Shepherds walk in storms, defend against wolves, and sometimes tend sheep who bite the very hands that feed them. The work is demanding, often lonely, and at times unbearably heavy.
If you feel weary in your calling, you are not alone. Moses once cried out in exasperation (Numbers 11:14)
“I cannot carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me” (Num. 11:14).
The pasture is not an easy place, but it is a holy place.
And here is the deeper truth: shepherds are not left to pasture alone. The Chief Shepherd (Jesus) does not only entrust sheep to your care, He cares for you. He restores your soul beside still waters (Ps. 23:2–3). He carries the lambs in his arms, and sometimes that lamb is you (Isa. 40:11). Before you are a pastor, you are a sheep. Before you are a missionary, you are a beloved child.
The pasture is God’s before it is ours, and he sustains those who labor in it.
Patience with the Slow Work of God
One of the hardest parts of shepherding is the slowness of the work. Grass grows slowly. Sheep mature gradually. Fruit ripens only in season. Many ministers wrestle with discouragement when change is not immediate.
But Scripture calls us to a long view (James 5:7)
“See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains”
Faithfulness in the pasture means trusting the Spirit to do in decades what we cannot accomplish in days. God is never hurried, and yet he is never late. What may feel like obscurity or stagnation is often the hidden work of grace, forming lives, shaping hearts, and cultivating maturity that will only be seen in time.
Ok, I’m Done
There is the sweet melody of the pasture. Simplicity. Ordinariness. Consistency. These are the three notes of pastoral life. Alone, each seems modest. Together, they form a melody that echoes the music of Christ’s own shepherding love.
Life in the pasture is not about speed, brilliance, or spectacle. It is about faithfulness to a simple call, lived out in ordinary places, with the steady consistency of presence. This is the life Jesus lived, and it is the life he calls us to follow.
The Good Shepherd still leads us into the pasture. And those who follow him—whether as pastors, missionaries, or everyday disciples—will discover that the pasture is not barren but abundant. Here we find the slow, steady work of the Spirit, who grows people into maturity not through flash or frenzy, but through faithful shepherding.
The world may never notice the shepherd’s quiet work. But the flock will. And more importantly, the Chief Shepherd will. And on that day,
Peter reminds us in (1 Peter 5:4)
“when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet. 5:4).
That is the reward of pasture life. And it is worth everything.
References
Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 17.
John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry (Nashville: B&H, 2002), xiii.
Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978), 233.
Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 136–37.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 39–40.