Meeting with Ben and Susan Cheek, Hugo Monroy, and Chadd Schrader was such a blessing yesterday! They are working on a Pathways project together with Kent which looks like is turning into a book of sorts. It follows the life of Christ, and asks how he brought seekers along to become servants and finally “sons” of God. In the meantime, Jesus was proclaiming his identity to the crowds, and really God was proclaiming that through Jesus’ righteousness (not his deeds) he was God’s Son, and he was very pleased with him. Jesus then heads to the desert to be tempted; this begins the formation phase of Jesus’ ministry, where he is disseminating information, teachings, wisdom, discipline for those who rejected God, etc – kind of creating a beginning place for those who want to follow after him. Finally his impartation stage: he puts his mind to the Cross, and begins to step down as a “leader”, letting others then lead instead.

The result is that within three years, Jesus pours all his time and energy into 12 fishermen, who then become disciples, who finally become world church leaders. Their experience is what church planters are looking for today: how do we bring common people to faith in Christ, then to grow in their discipleship, and finally to become church planters on their own who can train more disciples? Your work is not truly done until you have seen your ministry replicated to the third and fourth generation. I anticipate that with all I have within me as a follower of Christ. The buck doesn’t stop here – I pass it on to others who will do the same.

This morning I read about Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet. This is the move I think from being a teacher who leads his followers to a servant who moves to the background. Jesus is empowering his disciples to take over as leaders – but to be servants in this leadership role. Servant leadership is not just a catch phrase, doing your work as a leader with a flashy-looking smile on your face; it is doing the background grunt work so that others can step up and try their hand at doing what you have been showing them. It is allowing the curtain to close in front of you so that you can begin to work the lights for other’s center stage moments. Leadership starts with teaching and discovering, but it reaches its fulfillment with a basin and a towel.

Last 5 posts by Mark

• Brain Dump - October 8th, 2008
• God is Wholly - October 2nd, 2008

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 6:52 am and is filed under Christian Leadership, Discipleship, Other Networks, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.