Rich Dixon is talking about help.

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Climbing fences wasn’t meant as a tradition.

Perhaps you remember when I accidentally sent our first team fence-climbing in a snake-infested field. On our second tour in 2014, the locked gate in a random spot across a perfectly good bike trail wasn’t my fault.

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I included this among our 2014 team discussion prompts:

Suppose you noticed someone in obvious distress holding a sign proclaiming:

PLEASE DON’T HELP.

What would you do?

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Monte’s a “service dog,” though many folks call him a “helper dog.” It’s more than a difference of semantics. Serving is different than helping.

The strong help the weak, the big help the small, the able help the disabled. The superior help the inferior.

Those who can help those who can’t.

Service turns this around. Servants are humble, invisible, and lowly. Servants do tasks deemed unfit for masters.

Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, the servant of all.”

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I bring this up partially because it fits the timeline, but more importantly – I’ve recently been the guy holding the sign.

Perhaps you’ve read Jon’s notes about my broken bike and the GoFundMe effort, including many of you, that exceeded anything I could even imagine. Friends organized this effort despite my stubborn resistance. A huge community wanted to get me back on my bike, and I was frantically waving a sign: PLEASE DON’T HELP.

Like most folks, I didn’t want to be weak, small, disabled, inferior. I didn’t want to be the guy who can’t.

I forgot. The people surrounding me weren’t helping, they were serving.

I forgot. Jesus washed Peter’s feet as an invitation to the humility of servant leadership.

I think we’re asked to lead by serving AND to lead by humbly accepting the service of others.