One of the more prominent issues we see in the church today is a lack of understanding the biblical importance and joy of meaningful local church membership. Many Christians are untaught on the issue. And, it’s one thing to be unaware of the issue, be taught, and then embrace it. It’s quite another, when we study the issue, but, like the Draad Kruiper, refuse the step of obedience in membership so as to stand near the flock but not in it.

Amusing sheep stories abound. Some of my moments of more rigorous chortling have been in response to real-life sheep tragi-comedies. One of the more recent involves what is called the “Draad Kruiper,” which I heard from my good friend, Pastor Anton Van Straaten. “Draad Kruiper” is Afrikaans for, “fence crawler.” The story goes like this:

There was a shepherd who owned many sheep and took good care of them in his pasture. However, not all of the sheep took a liking to the plentiful feeding provided in the grassy sheepfold. One day, the shepherd noticed that one of his sheep was missing. Being a faithful shepherd, he scanned the fold for the sheep.

Missing sheep was not an uncommon thing. Now and then a renegade sheep would bolt the fold only to end up tangled in a bramble bush upside down, or worse. But this time, the shepherd did not have to go far to find the missing sheep. As he scanned the grassy yard, he noticed the sheep just on the other side of the fence. The sheep stood there nonchalantly, just looking at the shepherd. He wasn’t running, moving, struggling, or hurt. Just standing there by the fence. So, being a reliable shepherd, and knowing it was that sheep’s first escapade, he gently moved the erring sheep back into the lush barnyard and reminded it of what it already knew; that there was plenty of good eats inside the fold.

The next day, when the shepherd awoke to feed the flock, he noticed that the same sheep was missing. Sure enough, there it was standing in the same place on the other side of the fence. It looked at him. He looked at it. It didn’t move, but stood there, again, nonchalantly and unhurt. Since the sheep was full-grown, the shepherd couldn’t quite figure out how it was getting out. So, he brought it back in again. The next day, the shepherd observed the same, full-grown sheep in the act. Like a snake slithering on the ground, the sheep was straining to flatten itself, and slink underneath the few-inch barbed-wire fence. He noticed the sheep exerted great effort throughout the laborious process, lowering its body, wiggling its way under the wire, and crawling inch by inch, until finally it emerged on the other side of the fence. It took far more effort to snake under the few inches between the barbed wire and the ground than it did to humbly integrate into the flock. For days the sheep did the same thing. And, interestingly, it never ran away. It always stood just on the other side of the fence. It loved to crawl under the fence and just stand there, always near the sheepfold, but never in the sheepfold. The “Draad Kruiper.”If there were no human parallels, the Draad Kruiper would simply be funny story. Not coincidentally, God likens humans to sheep more than any other thing. Perhaps parallels exist more often than not.

If there were no human parallels, the Draad Kruiper would simply be funny story. Not coincidentally, God likens humans to sheep more than any other thing. Perhaps parallels exist more often than not.

Here are a few ways that we might be like the Draad Kruiper:

1. Professing Jesus Christ but failing to plug into a NT kind of local church.

Like the Draad Kruiper, many want to profess that they are in God’s sheepfold, but never express it. But, candid, committed, and consisted involvement in God’s kind of a church is the way his people get to express it. Plugging into a biblical church is the knee-jerk, continual response of the Holy Spirit in regenerate individuals. He wants to maintain the unity of himself (cf. Eph. 4:3-6). One way he does that is by moving us to express our global/eternal identity as “member of the Body of Christ” by expressing that identity locally/temporally. Like having to exhort someone to eat, it’s not a sign that I am doing well if local church leaders have to repeatedly encourage me to allow God to care for me by enthusiastically plugging into a sound church.

2. Irregular or infrequent participation in corporate worship.

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