The Leader as Servant
We often encounter the three most fundamental questions of life:
1. Who am I?
2. Where did I come from?
3. What is my Destiny?
Which question is most important? The key question is the second one: where did I come from? Depending on your answer, your destiny will be changed.
God says that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation—people belonging to God (1 Peter 2:9). Therefore, the most essential question is not who we are in this life but to whom we belong and whose we are. This, in fact, will determine who we are.
Jesus as our example
We witness the life of Christ at the cross of Calvary—the grand monument of mercy and regeneration, salvation and redemption—when the Son of God was uplifted on the cross (Horton, 2012). Ellen G. White says, "The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary” (Gospel Workers, p. 315). The Cross of Calvary is crucial to Christians not only for His death and resurrection, which are the core values of the plan of salvation, but more so for how He lived his life—not just how He died, but how He lived. As His children and the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is the life we must follow.
Jesus lived His life as a humble servant: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt.20:28). Therefore, the bottom line of the Christian journey is to be servants of God. Our ambition is not leadership but servant-hood, leading servants into servant-hood of leadership. Servant-hood is the Christian journey. It is saying we are following Jesus all the way as true disciples, and it is foundational and central to the Christian’s life and ministry. Being leading servants is serving with Jesus, not just for Jesus. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
Servants with Jesus
Servant-hood is an essential requirement for a leader. God gave various spiritual gifts to the church (disciples, prophets, teachers, ministers, etc.) regardless of each individual’s calling; servant-hood is the basis for all gifts that encourages others to serve, to give, to help, to be merciful and hospitable. These traits are even more critical in the church than in the corporate world. As our Lord Jesus Christ served, so ought we to serve one another (Tan, 2006).
However, we have some challenges. One of them is that we don’t want to be a servant—we want to be leaders. Rick Warren says, “Thousands of books have been written on leadership, but few on servant-hood. Everyone wants to be a leader; no one wants to be a servant. We would rather be generals than privates. Even Christians want to be “servant-leaders” rather than plain servants. To be like Jesus, though, is to be a servant.” Robert Banks says, “Leadership is the key term and servant is the qualifier. What we need today is not, as is so often suggested, more servant leaders, but properly understood, more leading servants.” We need more leading servants who understand that: the gospel must be preached, the lost must be found, the believers must be equipped, the poor must be served, the lonely must be enfolded into community, and God gets the credit for it all (Stearns, 2009). Ellen G. White says that “kneeling in faith at [the foot of] the cross, he has reached the highest place to which man can attain” (The Acts of the Apostles, p 210). The highest place is not being a director, president, or CEO—it is the foot of the cross.
If one does not have a servant’s heart and a servant’s attitude, it is possible to serve in church for a lifetime without ever being a servant. Leaders who are not real servants first, with a servant’s heart, are potentially dangerous. They tend to abuse power and pamper their egos (Tan, 2006). They care only to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain and usually end up exercising a leadership style and approach that can be destructive to them and their followers.
The leader must serve the organization and its members. Ask yourself, do I think more about others, than about myself? Do I base my identity in Christ? Do I think of ministry as an opportunity, not an obligation? Christian servant-hood is not only serving Jesus but also serving with Jesus. It involves not only being servants of Christ but also being servants with Christ.
Demonstrate Your Love
Throughout Jesus’ ministry we bear witness to a genuine servant-hood approach toward humanity, especially people who were marginalized, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised from society. They were the poor, the sick, the unclean—all outcast as sinful people. Jesus expanded the kingdom of God to places, people, and cultures that the Jews had never considered God to be interested in (Conn & Ortiz, 2010).
Jesus grieved over the multitudes of people who were helpless and brought hope to their lives by ministering according to their needs. Through this compassionate service opportunity Jesus was able to build a trust relationship. “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Savior mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me’ (Ellen G. White, Ministry of Healing, p.143). Jesus mingled with people, identified their needs, met their needs, and developed a trust relationship. Through the trust relationship He built a bridge of trust relationship, and then He said to the people, “Follow Me.”
The purpose of being a disciple is not only to proclaim the good news, the word of salvation, but also to demonstrate the love of God to people who are in need. “It is God Himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives through Christ Jesus; and in ages long ago, he planned that we should spend our lives in helping others” (Ephesians 2:10). This is why service is not an option in Christian servant-hood. We are called to maintain and improve social conditions of society. We are commanded to create kingdom values in this world. We are commissioned to become change-makers in our communities.
However, in its institutional preoccupation, some churches have abandoned their real identity and reason for existence (McNeal, 2009). Like the Sadducees, who were in charge of the Jerusalem’s Temple-based activity and sold out to materialism and religious ritual, they become systematical and mechanical religious practitioners. Like the Pharisees, who were holding control in the synagogues and dominating the religious agenda, policies, and operational procedures, they produced a dead religion.
The reality is that in general, people in the community don’t care much about organized religious institutions or club memberships. They think that religious people do not see people; they see only causes, behaviors, and stereotypes. And most of them think religious people do not feel emotionally with their hearts but rather think and process logically (Sider, Olson, & Unruh, 2002).
In Korea, we say father’s love is logical and mother’s love is emotional. When my son was younger, he would fall and hurt himself often. When he was hurt, my wife ran after him to see if he was OK, and to make sure there were no broken bones. On the other hand, I behaved logically. I watched from a distance, analyzing the circumstances. Then I’d approach him and ask him why he had fallen, how did he fall, and what had he learned from the experience? All the while the boy is crying out loud for a hug, I am trying to figure out why! Sometimes we do that as a church. People are crying out for the love of God, forgiveness, and assurance of God’s grace and mercy, while we are trying to figure out why and how they fell.
There are times we Christians are great at speaking the truth without love. We have the truth and know what people desperately need, but the challenge is that people will not receive it from us because we don’t love them and they can see that.
Antold France says, “The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet he wants another one which will last forever.” When was the last time that you thought, How do I turn myself into a missionary? How do I deploy myself, as a missionary in a community transformation? Since we are called into the servant-hood of Christianity we ought to take the gospel to the marketplace. Jesus went to the places where the people were. Likewise, we need churches where people are—at the mall, supermarkets, and coffee shops. For the most part, people are not coming to us—we have to go to them. Being a servant requires that we continually adopt new ways of thinking and working.
As leading servants, are we making any impact on the communities in which our institutions are located? What about our churches, schools, and hospitals? Are these neighborhoods better places to live because of our existence in these communities? When was the last time that you heard someone from the community say, “I am a better father today because of your church;” “I am a better mother because of your hospital;” or “I am a better person because of your school”? The challenge is not about our ability to do this—it is about our pride and our lack of concern for people. That is what God is concerned about. Because of corporate “churchianity” we are often reluctant to be connected with people outside the church. Mother Teresa said, “I see Calcutta everywhere—New York, Chicago, and the streets of Los Angeles.” We see people in need everywhere, but the challenge is that we don’t see God’s people; we see stereotypes, cause, and external appearances. We need to pray for God’s vision in our lives, to see His people with faces of God’s image.
There are times that we have been taught and trained to sell our brand of religion. We are so intent on convincing people that their lives are screwed up, their faith is wrong, and their beliefs are incorrect that we overlook the fact that we are unskilled at listening and engaging people (Kluck & DeYoung, 2009). We often look at them as prospects for membership rather than as spiritual beings with the same quest for God that we have. We need to stop training people as mechanics to work within the church industry and instead, equip and develop them to become disciples for the Kingdom of God as leading servants to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6). We need to shift from doing church at the clubhouse to being church in the world.
We must pray for God’s intervention in our lives and listen to people’s struggles and challenges, looking for an opportunity to serve and demonstrate the love of God. When we intentionally and sincerely approach people who are disfranchised, disassociated, and marginalized in our communities, we will witness changes in their lives—and changes in our communities. Again, the challenge is not about individual ability but about availability.
Modeling Compassion
Adapting and extending the work of Burns (Burns, 1978), Kouzes and Posner (J. M. Kouzes & Posner, 1987; J. Kouzes & Posner, 2007) examined the leader behaviors associated with servant leadership and identified five exemplary practices through their research. These learnable servant leadership practices include:
1. Model “the way.” The ability to establish principles regarding how goals will be attained and demonstrate how individuals interact, characterized by modeling appropriate behavior, as well as setting expectations.
2. Inspire a shared vision. The ability to envision, passionately communicates, and enlists support for future possibilities for organizations and groups.
3. Challenge the process. A willingness to examine and change that status quo, characterized by informed risk-taking and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
4. Enable others to act. The capacity to engage others in shared processes, characterized by mutual decisions, mutual investment, collaboration, and empowerment.
5. Encourage the heart. Have the ability to recognize and celebrate individual and group accomplishments. This practice can serve as a powerful personal learning tool and find a new expression in this emerging world. We must become leading servants as Christian disciples, who order their lives around missionary purpose and who believe they are responsible for fulfilling the Great Commission. Their organizational chart is not hierarchical but rather a flat circle. They measure their effectiveness and the impact of ministry beyond the four walls of the church, asking:
How is our dependability—are we doing what we say we will do?
How is our timeliness—are we doing them when we say we will do them?
How is our empathy—are we doing with an eye to the needs of community?
How is our tangible evidence—are we doing in ways that lets communities know a service has been performed?
As we serve the community, through Christ’s love and faith-in-action, we will be demonstrating what it means to be a leading servant; and we will begin to knock down the barriers between churches and communities at large. This is why the community outreach is proclaiming the good news, as well as demonstrating God’s love and concern for every soul. The bottom line is that we are called to servant-hood in discipleship. When we say we are Christians, we are not talking about self-serving Christianity, but serving Christianity—we will be serving disciples (Jenkins, 2011).
Bill Hybels says, “Christ through the church is the hope of the world and servants are the hope of the Kingdom of God.” God has called us to servant-hood; this is non-negotiable. We follow Jesus in humble and loving servant-hood, as He Himself was the humble Servant. By Christ’s model of compassionate service and love, we can lead people to spiritual transformation.
Reference:
Burns, James MacGregor. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Conn, Harvie M, & Ortiz, Manuel. (2010). Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City & the People of God: IVP Academic.
Horton, Michael S. (2012). The Kingdom and the Church: A Zondervan Digital Short: Zondervan.
Jenkins, Philip. (2011). The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity: The Coming of Global Christianity: Oxford University Press, USA.
Kluck, Ted, & DeYoung, Kevin. (2009). Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion: Moody Publishers.
Kouzes, James M, & Posner, Barry Z. (1987). The leadership challenge: How to get extraordinary things done in organization. San Francisco: lossey-Bass, 30-35.
Kouzes, JM, & Posner, BZ. (2007). The leadership challenge: The most trusted source on becoming a better leader: San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
McNeal, Reggie. (2009). The present future: six tough questions for the church (Vol. 47): Jossey-Bass.
Sider, Ronald J, Olson, Philip N, & Unruh, Heidi Rolland. (2002). Churches that make a difference: Reaching your community with good news and good works: Baker Books.
Stearns, Richard. (2009). The Hole in Our Gospel: What does God expect of Us? The Answer that Changed my Life and Might Just Change the World: Thomas Nelson.
Tan, Siang-Yang. (2006). Full service: Moving from self-serve Christianity to total servanthood: Baker Books.
White, Ellen G. (1909). The Ministry of Healing. Pacific Press
White, Ellen G. (1911). The Acts of the Apostles. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press
Sung Kwon has served as the director of the North American Division Adventist Community Services since 2001 and is an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, having served in Ohio and Allegheny East Conferences. Kwon grew up with Buddhism, influenced by his mother and Catholic belief from his father side of family and was baptized as a Seventh-day Adventist in 1991. Since he became an Adventist, he served as the executive director of the Good Neighbor House, an ACS agency in Dayton, Ohio, for eight years. He also was the president and vice president of the North American Association of Community Services Directors (NAACSD) during that time. He had the privilege of planting the Korean congregation as a company, serving as its interim pastor, under the favoring influence of the Kettering Seventh-day Adventist Church in Dayton, Ohio. In addition, he has served as administrative pastor for Miracle Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church in Allegheny East Conference. He has served on the board of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (NVOAD), the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, National Interfaith Coalition of Aging (NICA), and National Mass Care Council.