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A rancher tends a new flock
Rancher Nate Rooney is training to be a second-career pastor.
“If you want to understand the Bible, get some sheep.”
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Nate Rooney, a rancher from Brewster, Nebraska, knows that caring for sheep might not teach you the finer points of doctrine, but it does help you understand more about the biblical symbolism behind Jesus as the Good Shepherd for us, his sheep.
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“When you talk about the Good Shepherd, the sheep know his voice,” says Nate. “Sheep aren’t as dumb as everybody thinks they are. They do wander, but they follow. We can move 500 head of sheep by just hollering at them. With cows, it would take you all day to move 100 head anywhere because they don’t follow your voice like a sheep does.”
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Although Nate spent most of his life on the ranch working with cows and sheep, he now is training to be a different kind of shepherd—one of people. He just completed his first year at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wis., studying to be a second-career pastor.
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“My number-one goal is being a shepherd. That’s it,” he says. “[I want to be] that shepherd to a flock that needs somebody. I am not in it for the big numbers. I’m in it because people need somebody to lead them, to take care of them, to feed them, to show them where to go, and to help them along the way. That’s my heart.”
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It was another of the “gotcha” questions that Jesus’ enemies regularly posed to him. This one arose on the Tuesday before Good Friday, as Jesus taught in the temple courts in Jerusalem. Three gospel writers—Matthew (22:15-22), Mark (12:13-17), and Luke (20:20-26) . . .
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“Now, it's real.” I remember saying this to a classmate who also had just received a vicar assignment. It was now time to try what we had been dreaming of doing for so long. In some ways, I felt decently prepared. I had read books, studied notes, and wrote . . .
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Early in my career as a counselor and speaker—when my children were toddlers—I created a presentation titled “The 'mosts' of motherhood." Now, as I parent four teenagers, I find myself returning to those same "mosts" again and again, because God’s Word . . .
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