Changing the Conversation by Focusing on Service

“For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?  Is it not the one who is at the table?  But I am among you as one who serves.”  Luke 22:27

This has been on my heart lately.  I don’t particularly like the terms “church leadership” or “leaders in the church”, or anything similar to those terms.  There, I said it.  Why?  Too often I have observed that “church leaders” use their role, title, power and/or influence negatively, with little to no accountability to Christ’s actual words and actions in the church he founded and for which he died.  It’s not about our leadership, leading, the role, the title, the power or the influence.  The way forward requires changing the conversation, like Jesus did again in Luke 22, at the dinner table, the night before he died on the cross for us all.

Can you imagine the audacity of having an argument in the presence of Jesus about which of them was considered to be the greatest?  Jesus is a sinless, sacrificial, servant leader for three years in front of their eyes.  Maybe 1000 times the leader still that any of them will be.  Yet they are comparing their importance to one another and missing that point of humility entirely.  Jesus as their Lord and Teacher gets up from the meal and washes their feet as an example to them, a model for their own ministry and mindset: “you should do as I have done for you.”  (John 13:15)

In my opinion, we need to change our approach to "church governance".  What if every church “leader” first prayed to Jesus and then asked, "What can I do to serve your church?"  What if every church staff or ministry team meeting started with prayer to Jesus and then asked, "What can we do to serve your church, Jesus?"  What if every Network or Alliance meeting started with prayer to Jesus and the question, "What can we do to serve your churches, Lord?"  What would that look like for you, for the church the Lord placed you in, for your Network and the Alliance as a whole? 

I think sometimes that local congregations have mistakenly come to sense that their primary purpose is to maintain themselves.  So what is your mission?  Your vision?  Your values?   What we have sensed over the last few years is a decreasing desire to put energy into “the institutional thing” and an increasing desire to focus energy on making many more humble and obedient disciples of Jesus.  This is great!  Don’t get me wrong – some structure is necessary, but that structure needs to point to the vision and mission of Christ.  And we also have to start with how each of us, with our own unique giftedness - and faithfulness to that giftedness - can serve the church best.

By focusing on what we can do to serve the church, it changes our posture into one of humility and obedience to our calling from Jesus.  Like the early churches in Acts, who were learning what it meant to be the church, we are in a new space of learning.  I am hopeful that by changing the conversation, by changing our posture and by focusing on serving, we will see this time as one of deepening faith, deepening discipleship, and a Godly adventure.

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors.  But you are not to be like that.  Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.”  Luke 22:25-26