Deer Park United Church is located at
Rd S.E. Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Welcome all to our morning worship
service every Sunday at 10:00 a.m.
Servant Leader
On Sunday, February 23rd, I preached on Matthew 5:38-48. The text includes sayings such as:
- “Love your enemies.”
- “Turn the other cheek.”
- “Go the extra mile.”
The Message translation of the Bible says that the circumstances such as these are opportunities “to practice the servant life.” With that wording, I thought about Robert K. Greenleaf who coined the phrase “servant-leader.” Here is one of his definitions:
The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.
When I was first out of Divinity School at Duke University, the Bishop for my area required that the ministers participate each and every year in a Covenant Renewal Service. John Wesley who founded the Methodist movement in the 1700’s wrote the service and here is the concluding prayer:
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
This prayer epitomizes the “servant-leader” as one who is totally open, trusting, and willing to serve first. I have always struggled with this prayer and continue to do so. It exposes my fears, hopes, dreams, insecurities, and a deep desire to be so totally committed. Some words roll off my tongue easily – “let me be employed for you.” Others hardly find expression at all – “laid aside for you.” “Put me to suffering?” Doing is ok as I would rather be kept busy in engaging ministry.
For me, this prayer pushes and pulls me in many directions in a struggle to serve, to step up or to step aside, to shine or to let others shine, to be my “own” or to be, in the hands of God, a servant and an instrument of God’s grace and love. I use the prayer often and oddly it seems to always be right there in the edges of my consciousness – pulling, pushing, and challenging between the extreme types of leaders and all the “shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”
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