What kind of leadership will effectively lead the church into the morally turbulent twenty-first century? The same kind of leadership that led it through the morally and politically chaotic first century. Shepherding.

This is the kind of leadership Jesus used, and this is the kind of leadership that will take his church where he wants it to go.

While the term "shepherd" produces warm images of love, care, and tenderness, it also describes a form of leadership that is perilously protective, dangerous, dirty, and smelly.

"Shepherd" is something that every follower of Christ, the...