Tag Archives: serving

a model of teaching leadership

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If you are training people in leadership, how do you help people understand what you are teaching?

Consider Jesus’ approach:

1. You could start with a point of passion.

Look for what is making them angry. Find an injustice that has them completely furious. Especially if it is an injustice that affects them.

“How come he gets special treatment?”

“How come they get to do that and I have to do this?”

2. Call everyone together for a staff meeting. Instead of scolding, however,  start by talking about the common enemy.

“You know what the Romans are like. They can make you do anything they want. They can ruin your life. You know how much you hate that? Why are you making that your leadership model?”

The whole group knows how bad Rome is. They are being shown that there is a flawed leadership model involved.

3. Make it clear to all involved that neither side in the passionate debate has it completely right.

James and John were asking for seats of power. The other ten were mad that the two had asked first. Jesus says, in essence, “You’re all working from the wrong model.” It wasn’t about who got there first or whether he had favorites.

4. Explain how you want it to work.

Jesus tells them about the model of leading that he wants them to use. It’s a model of serving, of putting the good of your people ahead of your personal desires and comforts. He carefully repeats the image of servant and of slave. There is no missing the idea.

5. Demonstrate it in the clearest possible way.

Jesus ends by saying that he is giving up his life for them. And then, within a week, he does.

How well do the people you are training understand your model?

Why not?

no need to be original.

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Sometimes we work hard to be original. We want to say something new. We want to be creative and innovative. We want to make our mark.

Sometimes the best thing to be is a copy. We repeat what we’ve heard. We teach what we’ve learned. We prove by our lives that it works.

In Matthew 20, Peter is one of ten disciples who is complaining. Mrs. Zebedee (James and John’s mom) has asked if her sons could sit next to Jesus when he gets his kingdom. The ten go ballistic (or would have if ballistics were a science at the time). Jesus responds by calling all twelve together and describing what it means to be a leader, Jesus-style.

Jesus makes a couple clear points:

1. don’t take your position as an excuse to act like a lord.

2. Instead, act like a servant.

And then Jesus heads for Jerusalem and his death.

So did his words click for anyone? Is there any evidence that anyone heard him that day?

Yes indeed, clear evidence.

Peter writes a couple of letters that end up in the Bible. In the first one, he starts talking to leaders. He says, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must but because you are willing, as God wants you to be. Not greedy for money but eager to serve; not lording over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock.”

Years later, imprisionments and beatings later, leadership squabbles and values challenges later, when he talks about leadership, Peter is distinctly unoriginal.

I suppose it might have to do with how soon after Peter heard those words from Jesus that Peter watched Jesus die. For him. And forgive him. And rise again.

“Here’s what Jesus said,” Peter writes, “it works.”

relationship rewards

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“Store up treasure in heaven.”

That’s what Jesus tells us. Don’t spend your energy on stuff that gets eaten up by financial declines so that you panic about how much less you are worth this week than last week.

Because, of course, if your measure of your worth is in your portfolio and your portfolio declines precipitously, then your heart will decline precipitously as well.

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Isn’t it intriguing that this image Jesus paints of wealth being devoured rings so true in an economic decline? And isn’t it intriguing how much energy the people in the mirror are putting into thinking about how many more years we are going to have to work before retirement? Isn’t it intriguing how cranky and insecure and strategic we are getting?

And yet, what does it mean to store up treasure in heaven and how does that help now?

If treasures are like rewards, then the first half of Matthew 6 answers that question. Giving, praying, and fasting, done in secret, bring rewards.

What?

You mean that if I look for people in need and help them, that is storing up treasure? But how could that have reward? We are just seeing Jesus, after all (Matthew 25).

You mean that if I am talking with God, that is storing up treasure? But it’s conversation! It is it’s own reward.

You mean that if I am going about fasting with a smile on my face, combating injustice, bringing freedom to trapped people, that is storing up treasure? But it is so fulfilling!

All three of these things that Jesus says are rewarding are rooted in deepening our relationship with God.

I’ve thought of storing up treasure as acquisition. But gold in heaven is the least valuable thing. The conversational relationship is the real treasure.

And it starts now.