The Shepherd Who Showed Up

In 2018, a small church in rural Kentucky lost its pastor to scandal. Within months, two elders began fighting over control of the congregation. One wanted to sell the building. The other started redirecting tithes into a personal ministry fund. By Christmas, a church of 140 had dwindled to 37. Families scattered to neighboring towns. Some stopped attending anywhere at all.

Then Margaret Hollis, a seventy-year-old retired schoolteacher who had sat in the third pew for forty years, did something no one expected. She started calling every family that had left. Not to guilt them. Not to take sides. She simply said, "You belong here, and we need you back." She organized Wednesday dinners. She visited the sick. She held the door open every Sunday morning and greeted each person by name.

Margaret had no seminary degree, no title, no authority. But she understood something the warring leaders had forgotten — the flock was never theirs to begin with.

That is the very heart of Jeremiah 23. The Lord declares woe to shepherds who scatter and destroy His sheep, then makes a breathtaking promise: "I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock." God does not abandon scattered people. He raises up faithful shepherds who tend with integrity, and ultimately He sends the Righteous Branch — the true King who executes justice and righteousness in the land. The sheep were always His.