Humility

What comes to your mind when you hear the term “servant leader?” In our first post on servant leadership, we noted that servant leaders are not docile doormats, but careful cultivators who steward their leadership gifts and opportunities to see others flourish. In today’s post, we will explore the commitment servant leaders have towards developing and equipping new leaders to carry out the work of ministry.

Introduction

Servant leadership is something people frequently talk about but rarely understand or practice. Many Christians seem to equate servant leadership with passive or subservient leadership. They envision the servant leader as a gentle, accommodating person who works hard to meet everyone’s needs and keep everybody happy. True servant leaders, however, are not docile. They’re driven.

Last Sunday, my son and I visited a nearby Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As a Baptist, I don’t quite fit in there, but then I don’t quite fit in at a lot of Baptist churches either!

I’d visited this church before, some years ago, but my son had never worshiped with Presbyterians. So for him it was an educational field trip, and for me it was a chance to catch up a bit with some friends and former students—and worship together.

It is interesting that verse 20 refers to John as “the one who had been reclining at table close to him” right after Jesus gives Peter a chance to retract his threefold denial of Jesus with a threefold affirmation of his love. We could easily surmise that Peter the Denier is going to suffer martyrdom while John the Beloved will escape such a fate, and each will do so based on their faithlessness or faithfulness. Yet, there is no hint in the text that this is so. Their differing fates were the result of the good pleasure of God—“if it is my will.”