Leadership-Servanthood in the Church

Leadership-Servanthood in the Church
There are several meanings and explanations about leadership. But i will be focusing on servanthood leadership in the church. And i would agreed all the interpretations about leadership and their explanation. But for my own understanding about the meaning of leadership is serving the people with sincere love, humility, kindness, and compassion. Its includes servanthood. I have seen a lot of leaders who had being served by the followers, not the leaders who serves the followers. In this case, leadership is not servanthood, and it is conflict with the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, there are several meaning about leadership. According to the website, the meaning of leadership is motivating a group of people to act towards acheiving the goal. In other word, it is raising the individual or a particular person to become a good leader next to him or her. Some others leaders explains it as leadership is an ifluence, meaning if someone influence the people around him, then he is a leader. They all had their own understanding about the leadership and the expressed it in a different ways. But for me i would rather take the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he is the best leader and master teacher, he show it in his life. Servant leadership is simply to follow the character of Jesus Christ and apply it and doing practically in our life.
Love
As we all used to hears love is important than anything else. Not only Christian love each others unbelievers does as well. There are many ways in expressing love. But i will be more focus on the love of God. As we see in the Bible, God so loved the world that He sent his son Christ to save us (John 3:16). God is not just saying He loved the world that He will save, but by sending Christ He shows us His love. So Jesus Christ is the perfect one, because He had done what exactly the Father wanted him to be doing. We sees how he loves the world, he serve the people with love and save the world because of His great love. He himself is full with love that he gave his life suffering the unexpressable pain no one has ever experienced without any fault. That is why as a believers withour Christ we are nothing, but with him we are made perfect and righteous in the sight of the Father though we are sinful. That is the reason people says, “Christ’s love for us is a banner that covers and protects”. He is the only one true leader yet he served us with his love that we don’t even deserve and expect.
Humility
Humility is the opposite of pride. I would like to explore the humility of Christ the Messiah. In the Old Testment, the prophets prophesied the coming of the one who will save the people. Especially in the book of Isaiah it said that the Messiah will come to deleiver the people of Israel and He will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6). He is King of kings and Lord of lords and he will rule forever. When the people heard this they expected that the Messiah who is to come and rule over the earth will come like a king. But when the Messiah (savior) came, born in a manger their expectation and the happens was so differents that some Jews even can not accept Christ as the Messiah the one they are waiting for. In this story we can see the humility of Christ. He humble himself though he was King of kings and Lord of lords. Also in the New Testament eventhough He was given all authority in heavens and the earth, he is still humble to the Father that his Father’s will be done in everything. He served the people with humility though he was a mighty savior, and he taught his diciples. As we are a followers of Christ we should have humility in our ministry.
Kindness
Kindness is to help persons grow forward their best competencies. ’ ( effective church leadership, Kennon L. Callahan, 1990, new york).
The practice of kindness is the flip side of putting up with what is inconvenient in others; it is the active doing of kind things to those people you are having to put up with! Once again, this is a present active verb, describing constant action done out of love. In his book, Leading with Love, Alexander Strauch comments that, “Kindness is a readiness to do good, to help, to relieve burdens, to be useful, to serve, to be tender, and to be sympathetic to others… ‘Kindness is love in work clothes.
Jesus Christ set a perfect example of kindness and love. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus showed His love for others by blessing and serving the poor, the sick, and the distressed. He told His disciples, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12; see also John 13:34–35; Moroni 7:46–48). He taught us to love others; He showed us how by the things He did.
Now let's look at Acts 10, verse 37 & 38 - "You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." The word healing in this context doesn't limit itself to just physical healing, it can be mental, emotional or spiritual healing as well. Jesus of Nazareth was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and with power. Jesus went about doing good, healing the whole body, all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Jesus went about meeting the needs of other people, showing kindness and goodness.
Luke chapter 6, verse 35 - "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." You know it is easy for us to be kind to people who are kind; to people who are loving; to people who are nice. It's real easy to be nice to those people, to be kind, to even show goodness to those people. But I want you to see for just a moment; remember we are to be imitators of God as stated in Ephesians 5:1 ("Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children). Now let's look closely again at Luke 6:35, it says in the last part of the verse, "....because he (referring to God) is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. You know what that says to you and I ? We're to be kind and good to believers and unbelievers. To the loving and unloving. To those who do not deserve it. When Christ went to the cross; that's what grace is, unmerited favor. That is what Christ showed to us on the cross, unmerited favor. As we are a follower of Jesus christ we should have Kindness in our ministry.
Compassion
Compassion is having a since of deep sympathy and the heartfelt feelings of sorrow for someone hurting physically, mentally or emotionally. An unselfish need to reach out to help relieve the unfortunate misery of a person in need. The feeling of regret and pity showing a kind loving attitude.
John 15:12-14 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you.
We have to be willing to lay down our lives for others. Not one person should be left on the earth that doesn't have the chance to have the decision to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. Nothing in our lives should be more important than that quest. We are in a spiritual war for people's souls and we must not let up one minute or back down. From time to time we may have to withdraw our forces to recoup and heal up our battle wounds and scars but as soon as we are able to fight, we have to get right back into doing our righteous duty. Even from a hospital bed people have been led to Jesus, and by opening up your mouth so can you!
If we love our fellow mankind then no matter how badly we get hurt and wounded we must not give up the fight. We just have to trust Him to be doing the right thing even when it seems like He is not. We have to trust and walk by spiritual eye sight and not worldly carnal eyesight. This is why we don’t ever give up the fight to win souls. Even though we may at time get wearied in our minds yet we know that we have not resisted unto death to win souls for the Lord. We should have and use Godly compassion!
Biblical and Theological
We’re going to look at servant leadership and that it is a major category in scripture. Much is said about servant leadership these days but it’s nothing new. This category is embedded in a great tradition from Genesis through Revelation. Most clearly exemplified in the life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ whose humility and whose servant hood is so extraordinary in light of His greatness. The greater you come to see who He really is as we’ll see in a moment, the more amazing it is that this One could be called a servant. He paid a dear and great price to actually make that possible.
Although the Servant Leader has the authority and power to demand, he chooses instead to motivate through love and to educate by example. Remember the explanation given by Jesus after washing the disciples' feet: "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for [so] I am. If I then, [your] Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:13-15). Leadership by example is an important element of Servant Leadership. Especially in the midst of difficult circumstances.
Mathew 20:25-28 "But Jesus called them to Himself and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many'"
Christ explained that there are two different approaches to leadership-the world's approach and the servant approach. The natural approach in this world is to use authority to lord it over others. Christ did not say that there are no positions of authority, but that authority and power is to be used to serve.
We have been called to be kings and priests in the Kingdom of God. That means that we will serve humanity in the future. The greater the responsibility in the Kingdom, the greater will be the opportunity to serve. However, we won't be in the Kingdom unless we are learning to apply the mind of Christ in all of our relationships today. We won't automatically become servants in the Kingdom if don't learn to be servants today.
Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus was the second person of the Trinity, the Almighty Creator, and the only One worthy of our worship (Col. 1:15-20), He did not come to be served. He came to serve. His focus was to meet the greatest human need–deliverance from sin. He met many needs, His ultimate focus was reconciling sinners to God so that they might once again become sons and daughters. The life that He lived in the flesh, He lived for us. The Spirit He gave, He gave to us. Therefore, our service ought to be an expression of our gratitude toward God and our love for others. Service should not be self-motivated, but glorifying to God and edifying to our fellow man.
Not only was Jesus focused on serving others, but He was willing to pay the tremendous price of that spiritual service (Phil. 2:1-11). He knew that His purpose was a costly one, but He joyfully sacrificed His own divine rights, privileges, and preferences (Heb. 12:1-3) in order to serve those who had rejected Him. When we embraced our sin, we rejected the One for which our lives were made. Jesus’ servant leadership was characterized by self-denial of the most painful kind. While we may not have to give up our lives to serve another, we often have to give up our time, energy, preferences, comfort, convenience, and on occasion, our priorities to serve the physical and spiritual needs of others.

Conclussion
Jesus christ call us servants, we perfer to give orders. The lord Jesus christ showed us the attitude and actions of a true leadership. Jesus christ was a man of compassion, love, humility and kindness. A christian needs true leadership, who will lay down their lives for the sheep, as Jesus christ did. Jesus’ servanthood means humility, love, compassionand kindness. all of Christ's remarkable actions and teachings, perhaps none is more relevant to Christian men than that of servant leadership. In contrast to those who seek to lead for power, prestige, or pride, Jesus Christ was a different sort of leader, a humble man motivated by love, compassion, and mercy for those around him.
References:
1)Nate Wilson.(2009). 1 Cor. 13:4 – Longsuffering, Kind, Not Envious or Bragging. Manhattan, KS 16 Aug. http://www.ctrchurch-mhk.org/sermons/1Cor13_04.htm.
2)Feb 25, 2011. Kindness and goodness. http://www.d-u-c-k-s.com/new_page_13.htm.
3)Tony Garland. 2005. Servant Leadership.7of8. http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/topics_by_tony_garland?04_servant_leadership/04_servant_leadership.htm
4) Roy Holladay. 2000. Jesus Christ's Leadership Approach. http://www.ucg.org/un/un0008/.
5)Mueller, smith & Tribbett. March 2010. Servant Leadership. http://solumevangelium.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/servant-leadership/.
6)Bishop Rev. Diana Gray M. (2000). Bible study, the compassion of Jesus christ. It appeared on jan 30. http://dianagrayministries.net/bible/bso_compassion.html.