Today I drove to North London to speak to a group of future leaders about servant-leadership. It’s not one option among many. It’s not a contemporary model (although popular in contemporary leadership writing), it’s not a contemporary model that can be chosen when appropriate and set aside when another model is more expedient. I think there is too much leadership teaching based on expediency rather than theology. We spent the majority of our time soaking in four biblical passages . . . the sum of which turned our view of leadership upside-down and drove us deeper into servant-leadership as the only appropriate way to lead for any that are captivated by Christ. He didn’t demonstrate servant-leadership to offer an example of how to sometimes lead. He lived out servant-leadership, with all the other-centeredness and the total lack of self-regard, and the spurning of any self-glorification, and the overwhelming sacrifice, and with the cross as the goal . . . He lived out servant-leadership because that is what God is like! When we are captured by the character of God, servant-leadership drives so much deeper than a model to use for its expediency. And if we find ourselves leading in another way: seeking our own glory, holding back from sacrifice, well, then probably our view of God is skewed. Leadership, like everything else in the Christian life, begins with seeing what God is really like. Our God . . . serves. Wow.
Servant-Leadership
