14 Sep 06 Servant Leadership (Part 2)

It’s what’s on my mind right now.  How to cast a vision for servant leadership in our community of faith.

When we talk about servant leadership, most people think that means the "inmates are running the prison," or the leader is trying to please everyone.  People who think this way don’t understand that there are two parts of leadership that Jesus clearly exemplified: 

• A visionary role — doing the right thing
• An implementation role — doing things right 

I’m thinking about the correct push to do things right.  This is the call to excellence expressed in scripture with words such as "do all in the name of the Lord" or "work at it with all of your heart" and "as working for the Lord not for man."  But in our effort to do things with excellence, to do things right, have we made sure that we are doing the right thing?  This is not just fancy shmancy wordsmith preacherease.  I’m also not talking about right from wrong.  I’m talking about those ministry endeavors that we pursue and God is not in them.  We invest copious amounts of time, energy, and resources into countless projects that fail only to discover that God is working somewhere else.

So what does servant leadership really look like?  What do our shepherds need to hear?  What do I need to hear to be a model of servant leadership?