I’d been in church leadership for over two decades. I’d studied Scripture, taught from it, built governance structures around it. But this verse — one of the most direct indictments of unfaithful leadership in the entire Bible — somehow never landed in my lap until recently. I’m sure I read it at some point. But it never stopped me in my tracks the way it does now.
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them — shepherds — thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the flock?” (Ezekiel 34:2, ESV).
Shepherds feeding themselves. That’s the indictment. Not wolves attacking from the outside — shepherds consuming from the inside. Leaders who were appointed to tend the flock slowly turning inward, serving their own comfort, their own authority, their own vision of what the church should be.
It’s the most dangerous kind of drift because it happens gradually, and the shepherd rarely sees it in himself.
The Drift Nobody Notices
Over my twenty-three years in church leadership, I’ve watched good men drift. Not into scandal — that gets caught. Not into heresy — that gets challenged. Into something quieter and more corrosive: they stopped listening to the Chief Shepherd and started running the church from their own wisdom.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It starts small. A leader stops preparing for meetings with prayer and starts preparing with strategy alone. A pastor stops asking “what does Scripture say about this?” and starts asking “what will work?” An elder board stops evaluating decisions against biblical principles and starts evaluating them against congregational comfort.
None of those shifts announce themselves. They feel like maturity. They feel like being practical. They feel like leadership. But somewhere in the process, the voice of Christ gets quieter and the voice of self gets louder — and the shepherd doesn’t notice because he’s still doing shepherd things. He’s still preaching. Still attending meetings. Still making decisions. He just stopped listening to the One who called him to do those things in the first place.
Jesus said it plainly: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4, ESV).
That verse wasn’t written for new believers learning the basics. It was spoken to the disciples — the future leaders of the Church. And the warning is direct: apart from me, you can do nothing. Not nothing dramatic. Not nothing visible. Nothing. All the activity in the world — the sermons, the programs, the governance, the growth — is fruitless if it’s disconnected from the vine.
What I Watched Happen
I sat in board meetings where decisions were made without anyone opening a Bible. Not because the men around the table were unbelievers — they were elders. But somewhere along the way, Scripture had been replaced by pragmatism. The question wasn’t “what is biblical?” It was “what will keep the peace?” or “what will the congregation accept?” or “what does the pastor want?”
I watched a lead pastor gradually operate outside of his defined role — not with malice, but with the slow confidence of someone who had stopped being accountable to anyone. The board that should have been his shepherding community became his advisory panel, and then his rubber stamp, and then his obstacle when anyone dared to push back.
I watched elders who once pursued God’s heart begin to pursue stability instead. The fear of conflict replaced the fear of God. And the flock — the people sitting in the pews who trusted these men to shepherd them — never knew what was happening behind the conference room door.
That’s the fruit of a shepherd who stops listening to The Shepherd. It doesn’t look like rebellion. It looks like business as usual. And that’s what makes it so dangerous.
The Drift in Me
I need to be honest about something: I’ve drifted too.
Not in the same way. My drift didn’t look like self-serving leadership. It looked like self-righteous accountability. There were seasons when I was so focused on what other leaders were doing wrong that I stopped examining what was happening in my own heart. I pursued biblical governance with an urgency that was partly righteous and partly fueled by frustration. I held others to standards that I wasn’t always measuring myself against with the same rigor.
The irony of Ezekiel 34 is that it’s easy to read as an indictment of other shepherds. It’s much harder to read as a mirror. But the drift away from abiding in Christ doesn’t just produce leaders who feed themselves. It also produces leaders who are so consumed with fixing the flock that they forget they’re part of it.
I’ve had to learn — and I’m still learning — that my first calling isn’t to reform the church. It’s to abide in Christ. And if I drift from that, everything else I do — no matter how biblically justified — will carry a spirit that does more harm than good.
The Connection Most People Miss
Over the past two weeks, I wrote a series of daily reflections about abiding in Christ during an anxious season. The themes were broad — anger, trust, faithfulness, grace, peace, hope. And the response was humbling. Many of you told me these simple reminders met you where you were.
But here’s what I want you to see: every single one of those themes connects directly to church leadership.
When leaders don’t take their anger to God, they take it out on the flock. When leaders trust outcomes more than God, they compromise to get results. When leaders aren’t faithful in the small things, the governance structures crumble. When leaders withhold grace, the church culture becomes toxic. When leaders pursue false peace instead of Christ’s peace, sin goes unaddressed. When leaders lose hope, they stop fighting for the health of the body.
The crisis in the local church isn’t primarily a crisis of structure or strategy. It’s a crisis of abiding. Shepherds who have stopped listening to The Shepherd. Leaders who are doing leadership things without being connected to the One who called them to lead.
And the ripple effects reach every person in the congregation — whether they know it or not.
What Would Change
I think about this question often: what would change if every elder board in America started their meetings by honestly asking, “Are we still abiding?”
Not as a ritual. Not as a checkbox prayer before the agenda. But as a genuine, searching question. Are we connected to the vine? Are we listening to the Chief Shepherd? Are we leading from His voice or from our own preferences? Are we feeding the flock or feeding ourselves?
I believe the answer to that question — asked honestly and regularly — would prevent more church dysfunction than any governance manual ever written. Because the structures only work when the hearts behind them are surrendered to Christ. Bylaws don’t prevent abuse. Abiding does. Accountability systems don’t guarantee faithfulness. Abiding does. No amount of organizational excellence can substitute for leaders who are genuinely, daily, desperately connected to Jesus.
That’s where it all starts. That’s where it all holds together. And that’s where I want to take this conversation in the weeks ahead — not just the personal work of abiding, but what it looks like when leaders abide together, and what happens to the church when they don’t.
If the 16-day series was about the personal call to abide, this is the first step into the corporate one. What does abiding look like — or fail to look like — in the leadership of your local church? I’d love to hear your reflections. And if this resonates, there’s more to come.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4, ESV)
Grace and peace, Randy