When Jesus said, you believe in God; believe also in me (John 14:1) he was asking us what god do you believe in?
The Good Shepherd isn’t asking to do things, we don’t have to try and find him, he comes to us. We don’t have to atone for our sin, he does that for us. We don’t have to clean our act up, he does that by declaring we are a new creation. We simply allow the shepherd to lead us. We listen to his voice and follow him.
When our goal is the church, we are robbing people of something incredibly important. Jesus. Jesus is the gate; Jesus is the one we must bring people to if we want them to become part of the church. Everything we do is about pointing people to Jesus.