Servant Leadership29 April 1938 The church is a marvelous and beautiful living reality that Jesus can be trusted to build and bring to perfection. Yet the gospel is not the same as the church, nor is the church identical to the kingdom of God. As has been previously stated, the local church is for discipleship, and disciples are for the world. Thus, here we want to focus on precisely why leaders, spokespersons, and professionals who are disciples of Jesus Christ can and must enter the world, fully empowered by the Holy Spirit, to take on the responsibilities and duties of representing and pursuing the public good by holding fiduciary relationships with all they encounter. Such representatives will intentionally act as worthy ambassadors in a kingdom characterized by a just, benevolent, empowering, and endlessly loving king, with whom their allegiance ultimately lies. Therefore, such persons will be able to consistently testify and demonstrate, to all concerned, precisely how and why the best way, the clearest truth, and the fullest life are achieved by applying a Christlike model to both private and public issues. The critical point to grasp in this discussion of servant leadership, as seen in the historical role of Israel and the ambassadorial role of Christlike disciples manifesting God's kingdom ethos, is the duty of modeling that our leaders are to accept and perpetuate in and through all of our societal structures. Leaders serve us best when they model the knowledge and beneficial effects that proceed from the life they first experience and then uniformly profess as worthy and honorable through word and deed to others. Israel and later the first disciples of Christ were intended to act as examples, lights, and beacons of the good news and the way of life with God. When this is done well, when individuals work together in dedicated, loving, and sacrificial service to God and his kingdom, their efforts will shine in such a way that all will see their benefits; it will be impossible to hide the effects. When leaders exemplify the reality of God's ways, everyone in society is well served. This is the sacred calling of servant leadership in the scriptures. From The Divine Conspiracy Continued: Fulfilling God's Kingdom on Earth. Copyright © 2014 by Dallas Willard amd Gary Black Jr. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. |
No comments:
Post a Comment