By Sandra Shepherd
“Why have a plain car if you can have a car that makes a statement?” asks Sandra Shepherd, Pastor of Mt. Zion Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Mississippi. For eight years, including two and a half of the three she spent pursuing her Master of Divinity degree at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Sandra drove a Subaru Forester. “I had it painted to look like a big pair of blue jeans, with pockets, zipper, stitching, and even a little fraying…the whole works!” she says.
When it was time for the “Jeanster” to be replaced, she bought a Toyota RAV4. She was in the process of working out a design for decorating her new car when she enrolled in a seminary class focused on the Gospel of John. She was inspired by the passage in John 21:15-17, in which Jesus says to Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” Sandra knew she had found her design. “With the last name Shepherd and only a few months before I’d be looking for a congregational ‘flock,’ I knew I wanted my design to reflect the message from that passage,” she said.
The colorful vinyl wrap featuring sheep and its “FEED M” tag have made the car a wonderful conversation starter. People approach Sandra and ask if she sells mattresses or is a weaver, a veterinarian, or the owner of a day care. “When I explain that I’m a pastor, sometimes I can see a little light bulb click on over their heads. Other times, I need to go a little further into the explanation…reminding them of Jesus’ conversation with Peter. Every now and then, I peel back to the very basics and still get blank stares. I’ve had a few conversations that boil down to ‘Jesus wants us to make sure everyone is taken care of because he loves everyone.’ The design has afforded me some great parking-lot conversations with all sorts of folks!”
One day a woman followed Sandra into Wal-Mart saying her grandson had screamed, “Look, Granny! A Bible car!” Confused, she asked her grandson what he meant. The second grader explained, “Jesus said FEED MY SHEEP!” and she just wanted to check and see if he knew what he was talking about. Sandra took that opportunity to talk with the woman a bit more about the message behind the message.
The car—affectionately known as the “wooly wagon”—is decorated with more than a dozen sheep of different colors and designs. There is even one on the wheel cover that looks like denim (as an homage to the Jeanster). Kids like to pick out their favorites and even name them. The sheep with polka dots draws a few comments, as does the one with a butterfly on its ear. The black and white checkerboard sheep seems to be a favorite of NASCAR fans, and the “wool plaid” sheep catches the eye of quilters. Sandra thinks the variety among the sheep helps to emphasize the diversity among Christ’s sheep, and she frequently points out the harmony, too…with all the sheep “playing together as friends, sharing the grass and the flowers, smiling and happy because God loves them all.”
Editor’s note: A similar story about Sandra Shepherd’s Wooly Wagon ran in the Spring 2009 issue of The Mosaic of Louisville Seminary, written by Mary Jo Harrod.
