The god of Significance – part 4

David Timms is a teacher and friend. I’m honored to call him both. His reflections below are worth digesting and may cause you to significantly re-think why we lead. Is our quest to be great leaders really bowing to the god of Significance? To check out more by him pick up one of his books.

       Servants not Leaders

The “leadership” buzzword of the past 25-30 years has completely distracted us. We’ve blamed the demise of congregations on poor leadership. We’ve cried out for stronger leadership. We’ve attended leadership conferences and devoured leadership books.

In church circles, leadership sells well. People buy it — and buy into it — by the bucketload. We nurture it and honor it and cheer each other on to be more visionary, authoritative, democratic, decisive, ends-focused, goal-driven, and success-oriented.

It’s the age-old quest for greatness, shrouded loosely in the ecclesiastical garb of respectability.

But we’ve not only been distracted. We’ve been duped; deluded by the business models of our culture and the corruption of our own hearts.

Jesus did not call His disciples to be leaders. He called them to be followers and to be servants. He never used the term “ruler” or “leader” to motivate or define any of the apostles. He viewed them as learners (disciples) not leaders.

Some folk may shake their heads and suggest that good leaders are servants, as though they have tidily reconciled the two concepts. The phrase “servant-leader” seems to do that nicely. But would we be willing to drop the term “leader” altogether? Would we rush to attend a conference on “Serving Selflessly”? Would we read a book titled, “Aim Lower: You’re Nothing But a Servant”?

In the first century, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:5) “… and ourselves as your bondservants.” What a bold statement. We may fear saying the same thing lest people think less of us or, worse, take advantage of us.

But that’s how it works in the Kingdom at its best. Everything is backwards and upside down. Then one day we realize that it’s our lives that have been backwards and upside down and in a moment of shining clarity we discover that down is up and low is high; not that it matters any longer to us.

On this Easter Thursday, may we pursue the path of servanthood to honor the One who washes our feet and calls us to do the same.

In HOPE –

David