Pastor John, what would you say to a pastor who uses his church on Sundays as a studio?

Essentially, he preaches past his people into a video camera, into a microphone with

the main goal of producing online content.

In other words, his church is just a mechanism, just a studio for him to address an online

audience through them.

Well, I would try to encourage him first that it's not wrong to have a wider ministry,

but it is wrong to pretend that you have a flock that you shepherd when you don't have

a flock that you shepherd.

You have a studio or you have a stepping stone or you have an excuse, and if that's true,

you shouldn't presume to say you have a flock because God has some really, really serious

things to say about that kind of shepherd in Ezekiel 34.

He says, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them,

even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding

yourselves, should not shepherds feed the sheep.

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool, you slaughter the fat ones and you

do not feed the sheep, the weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed,

the injured you have not bound up, the stray you have not brought back, the lost you have

not sought and with force and harsh, force and harshness you have ruled over them.

Those have always been unbelievably serious words to me as a pastor, and I think Peter

picks it up in 1 Peter when he says, so I exhort you as a fellow elder, shepherd the

flock of God that is in your charge, exercise oversight, don't rule with compulsion, do

it willingly, set a good example for your people.

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