Servanthood, Part 1: The Greatest People on the Planet

Not long ago, I attended a regional gathering for local professionals and board members associated with a major national not-for-profit organization. At one session, a staffer unveiled a proposed vision statement intended to guide the organization over the next few years. It was the handiwork of a committee composed of persons from across the US. The staffer wanted our feedback, which he said would be taken to the committee for possible incorporation into a final draft.

The statement contained one laudable bullet point after another and I was really impressed. Then came an item that, paraphrasing, said something like this:

"We will cultivate a new generation of leaders, providing them with training, support, and encouragement."

That seemed like a fine goal to all of us. Still, something about it bothered me.

After internally brooding over things for a time, I finally realized what it was: Not every person touched by the work of this organization was going to become a leader. Not every one of them even should become a leader. Furthermore, as important as leadership is, the success or failure of anything--nations, churches, social service agencies, families, armies--depends on one essential ingredient. That ingredient is a coterie of willing workers. Another word for these foot soldiers who provide the essential people power behind every human success story is servants.

I therefore suggested another bullet point for the organization's vision statement, that might read something like this:

"We will also cultivate a new generation of team players, people willing to subordinate their own egos for the greater good and do the hard work in the trenches that insures the success of any endeavor. To future generations of willing servants, we will give hero status and provide them with the tools they need to become first-rate servants."

Leadership and Servanthood: Two different terms. One term is marked by glamor, the other by indifference or disdain. One is valued, the other is overlooked. Type in the two words for a Google search and you see what I call "the dazzle disparity." Leadership nets 157,000,000 results; servanthood shows 77,900. And if you go to Amazon, typing in the same two words, you find that the online retailer carries 18,759 book titles dealing with leadership, but only 33 on servanthood.

There are any number of secular and Christian organizational theorists who will talk about servant leadership, a fine and important topic. But I don't know any folks on the lecture circuit, doing motivational talks, or penning best sellers who are focusing exclusively on servanthood. Few aspire to servanthood, for one thing, and most organizations don't seem to sufficiently value the skills or mindset that goes with servanthood to spend time, energy, or money to cultivate it.

But what's usually missed by those focused on leadership is that the very best leaders are servants. Servants, who think about we rather than me and who have the capacity for empathy that comes from doing the grunt work that servants do, seem to make great leaders with the ability to communicate with and inspire those they lead.

Take Ronald Reagan, for example. At Reagan's funeral last year, former President George H.W. Bush told a story I'd never heard or read before. In March, 1981, two months into his first term, Mr. Reagan was the victim of a would-be assassin's bullet and was, for a time, hospitalized. One day, while still in the hospital, Reagan knocked over a glass of water. Afraid that the duty nurse would be blamed for his accident, the President of the United States, then nearly seventy years old, climbed out of his bed and on all fours, began wiping up the water. Just then his nurse came to his room and discovered what he was doing. To me, there is something in that story of a man with a servant's heart that tells us a little about why he was such a popular leader.

But we've always valued leaders more than servants. And usually, we aspire to leadership rather than servanthood. I know that I certainly have for most of my life.

When Jesus lived on the earth, He recruited a group of twelve people with whom He shared a special closeness and who He mentored with intimacy and persistence. These twelve, later to be His apostles--sent ones--were to be charged with carrying the Good News of His life, death, and resurrection to the world.

One day these rather ordinary men got into an argument. The topic? Who among them was the greatest? For the benefit of these Muhammad Ali wanna-be's, Jesus gave an object lesson:

...Jesus...took a little child and put it by His side, and said to them, "Whoever welcomes this child in My Name welcomes Me, and Whoever welcomes me welcomes the One Who sent Me; for the least among all of you is the greatest." (Luke 9:46-48)

The provocative thesis of God-in-the-flesh was that the greatest people on the planet are not the leaders with twenty-four hour limo service and the personal jet, but the servant.

Is that true?

What does a servant look like?

What do servants contribute to our world?

How can we be servants?

I hope to explore these and other questions in this series which I can't promise will appear every day, but will show up with frequency.

Before closing, a confession: I'm not always a very willing servant. I'm taking up this topic as much out of my own need to learn more about being a servant as anything. If you'd like to learn this vital skill with me, I invite you to read these posts and to interact with what I write by leaving your comments.