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Balance of Leadership and Service ...

Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009. There is an interesting relationship and balance between leadership and service. I would like to discuss this on some real examples today, by talking about my personal experiences.

I have been working with groups in church and beyond now for more than a 15 years. The key tasks on various levels has been to build establish some group or activity, to move things forward, to try to make progress in some matter. This has been in different areas. In my profession I have established a research group, which had ten members over the past year, PhD students and employees. In the churches we have been involved in we worked with small groups, with building up and developing our faith and our social interactions. We have been quite active in developing the whole local church in the places where we have lived, serving as financial managers and as elders. With the German “Evangeliumsentz” and now the “Jesus Network” on an international scale we have established organizations which serve the community via the internet, carry out projects and provide material and inspiration about faith in Jesus. Building up these activities with all the ups and downs has been a fantastic and strong experience, where all issues about leadership and service play a major role.

But the issues about leadership and service play a role not only in the social area of church. We have been in the process of establishing some international society for inverse problems - in my research area. Here again, leadership and service are key ingredients to move this forward. I have been in the role to observe and analyse their relationship intensely over the past three years - and relate my observations to the explanations given by Jesus in the bible.

One key observation in all my activities was: leadership is needed. You need strong personalities, who know where they want to go and who can take the whole group with them. Not everyone is gifted to do this - there are always special people who can do it. If they do not fulfill their role, then the group or activity does not develop, it starves and dies at some point. Without leadership, there is no progress and no future!

On the other hand, usually there are several strong personalities around, and the standard situation is that they are rivals in determining the steps and how things are run. Here, it is crucial that there are enough people to serve the community without getting into the rivalry. You need the servants, you need to have a good crowd of people doing the work. Without servants, the whole activity will not make progress, it will fade and die!

Now, Jesus is telling us that the leaders should be the first servants. I have learned that this is crucial, if some activity wants to live. It applies both to the professional and to the non-professional activities. If the leaders just want to command, they will not get far with the group. If the leaders are not able to find ways to work together, if the rivalry takes over, they will destroy the task and the institution or group, they are in. The leaders need to start to serve each other - then the whole can live. The leaders need to find a joint way to carry out things. They need to be able to give in with their own opinion or concept to the concepts of the others - and find the best mix or the best integrated strategy. This is a type of service of leadership - discussing and working out a good strategy, good goals, communicating them to everyone, integrating the opinions of the servants, of everyone in the group. Yes, the leaders need to lead, that is important. But their leadership is a service to the others, a service in full appreciation and love. A service in truth, with care and consideration. When leaders start to work like this, then there is a future for the activities, for the group, for the society they work and live in. Then there is a future.

[R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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jn_en_2009_11_11.txt · Last modified: 2017/06/18 16:48 by 127.0.0.1