Servant Leadership

 Leading a small group discussion is an art, not a science. The sciences depend on predictable results: 1 + 2 = 3, and will continue to do so evening if the dinner burns, the rain falls, or if the boss gives you a raise. Whereas, if you ask a person a “how was your day”, you could get completely different results on two different days. This article aims to look at some principles that will help in leading discussions.

Imagine that you are in charge of an internship programme in an organisation, and that you want to teach your new recruits about servanthood. In particular, you want to teach them that servanthood is at the heart of leadership. How do you do it? You could do a Bible study on the subject, but you decide that you want your ‘interns’ to experience servanthood, not just hear about it.

Your first idea is that you give them a task to wash the senior pastor’s car. However, does this really accomplish the goal? Do they learn that leadership is serving others, or do they actually learn that becoming a leader means that you can get others to do things for you? If Jesus ran an internship programme, what would He do?

Our experiences with formal education greatly influence our approach to learning. Here learning is often defined as acquiring more information about a certain subject in order to produce the right answers to questions and problems. Most of us have been students at some stage of our lives and know the pressure of assignment deadlines and studying for exams. We have memories of intense study before an exam and late nights completing assignments just before they are due. These techniques are often sufficient to get us through academic studies, but are totally inadequate to meet the challenges of daily living.