Four years ago my church split in two, and two hundred and fifty people started a new church.  It was so hard.  I had grown up in my old church.  Baptized there.  Married there.  My children came to Christ and were baptized there as well.  My daughters were married there.  I taught Bible there for forty years. Ken's father was pastor there in the nineteen-forties.

But my new church is finally coming together.  We got a pastor a few months ago.  He is wonderful.  One of those people who loves people and truly cares about them.  He was a missionary in Cambodia for many years.   Now he is here with us.  It's our gain.

He has interesting sermons,  but I still go to sleep in church sometimes.  It's not his fault.  I don't think it's mine either.  It's just a factor of the mileage on my body.  I've found that if I write down the points he is making, I concentrate better.  He is very organized in his teaching and easy to follow.  I am so very thankful he is here.

You can listen to dynamic preachers on television.  But you can't build a church if the only thing you have is a dynamic speaker.  You need a shepherd.  Someone who is there in times of trouble and times of joy.

Matthew 9:36  "But when he (Jesus) saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."

Every church needs a shepherd.