"I’m their pastor? I don’t even know who they are.”

 This story:

I was at a street corner, I’m getting into my car and a car honked. These college-aged girls were looking over and waving. I’m looking up and I’m like “I don’t know who they are.” Then the light turns green and they yell in unison “you’re our pastor!” as they’re driving away. I’m just like, “I’m their pastor? I don’t even know who they are.” A pastor who shepherds knows their sheep, knows if one is missing.hen I started looking into what is theologically a pastor. It's only written once in the New Testament, the book of Ephesians. It wasn't even a title or an office. It was a spiritual gift of shepherding. And I'm just like "you know, I don't want to mislead people in our church to have them feel like I'm their pastor simply because they come and listen to me teach on a Sunday." There's people in this church that are really pastoring, according to what the Bible says what pastoring is. It's got to be relational, if one sheep is missing, [see] how they're doing. So I just stopped using that term; I don't know if there's anyone on our staff that uses it anymore. It's not that we don't shepherd [or] pastor but we just stopped using the title as to try to really function what I believe is more biblically without that title and to allow people who have pastoring gifts to be exercising those and feel just as valid and important as the person who gets up." -context, Link:The difference between Pastor as a gifting and Pastor as a title/position


reminds me of my story:

Not long ago, a woman...obviously from a previous (and much larger) church I pastored... came up to me in a store, "Hey, Pastor Dave! Long time, no see! Your sermons absolutely changed my life!" I was thrilled and honored; but I didn't have the heart to tell her the whole truth: Not only did I have no idea of who she was; she had no inkling that I would not know. We both knew we had never had a face-to-face conversation; that was not the issue. But in a larger church (too large for the senior pastor to know everyone's name), there is the "Johnny Carson" syndrome at work. Carson was swamped by people whenever he went out in public who called him by first name; after all he was in their bedroom every night (via "The Tonight Show"). The false intimacy that dogs media stars can be even more damaging in the church context. I could tell the woman would be crushed if I admitted I had no idea who she was...most likely a quiet there-every-Sunday "22nd pew" saint; but I had no memory of ever seeing her. The default church culture automatically attributes omniscience to the senior pastor (He or she will not only know my name, but know when/where I am in the hospital, etc.) . Of course this is impossible with thousands, even hundreds of attenders; but as skewed and doomed as this expectation is, it is originally based on a basic biblical truth: shepherds are supposed to know their sheep; even call them by name. Jesus flatly calls any other kind a thief. - Full article here