Jeremy Hoover

This is a 9 minute audio version of my homiletical essay, "Servant Leadership."

Amidst temptation to lead by control, manipulation, and coercion, godly leaders know that God calls them to serve others because it is their duty to God.

Last week I wrote an article describing the difference between authoritative leadership and servant leadership. One commenter suggested I didn't use enough examples to adequately explain my points, so here goes on attempt number two!

I'll start with my simple definitions. For me, authoritative leaders lead by position; servant leaders lead by serving.

All leadership is influence. How you lead determines how you exert influence. Let's look at some examples.

In one church, there is a clearly defined group of elders. The culture of the church is clear that the elders are the "rulers" of the church. Decisions are made by them and any idea or project that someone wants to undertake must first be run by the elders for their "approval." Those who bypass this system, however genuinely, are directed to submit to the authority of the elders. For example, one church member started a home bible study. When the elders of the church heard, they called the church member into their meeting, demanding an explanation of why this was started. They explained that they, the elders, disagreed with home groups because they split the church away from the communal structure they desired (worship and one all-ages bible class). They told the member the home group would need to be disbanded. The structure of the church, seen through this decision, is clear--it is top-down leadership all the way. People submit more out of timidity and fear than out of love and respect. This is authoritative leadership.

This is an extreme example, to be sure. Not every authoritative leadership group is as rigid as in my example. But authoritative leaders who "lead" based on their positions exert authority more than influence. In fact, we might argue that their influence is negative, because it promotes fear and anxiety more than love and respect.

Another church operates differently. This church also has a group of elders but they call themselves "shepherds" and focus on relationships more than meetings and decisions. In fact, these shepherds encourage church members to be creative in ministry applications. In the course of visiting the church members, one member mentioned to them an idea to start a food pantry for needy families in the neighborhood, these shepherds commended this member for their creative thinking, offered to create space in the church building for the food pantry, and committed themselves to serving in it as a way to serve this member and the needy families who would be served. This is servant leadership.

In short, authoritative leaders use their "authority" (usually derived from a position of leadership) to make decisions, delegate, and dictate from the top-down. Authoritative leaders often struggle to relate to people.

Servant leaders have authority, but it's granted to them through their serving of others. These leaders exert real influence over others through their relationships. Relationships are key for servant leaders.

In a couple recent posts, I've questioned whether preachers serve themselves by spending hours in their office in lesson preparation and whether such preparation is even good for the congregation. I've argued that preachers and ministers should be the lead servants--out and among the people, visiting and shepherding, serving and meeting needs.

But what would such a commitment look like? The typical preacher teaches and preaches between two and four times each week. (I'm speaking from experience.) This is perhaps more true in conservative churches that focus most of their efforts on bible teaching, classes, and worship service. Mainline ministers may have it easier in that their churches don't tend to have as many minister-centric classes and services, but from my discussions with mainline ministers, their time tends to be taken up in more meetings.

The bottom line is that ministers give a lot of time to lesson prep and/or meeting administration and attendance. First, in order to give more time to visiting and shepherding in order to meet needs, a church needs to make a commitment to free its minister up from some of those demands. In some cases, it will mean different teachers taking over a class. It may mean canceling a class. It could also mean exempting the minister from needing to be at so many meetings.

Second, in order for ministers to give more time to visiting, shepherding, and serving needs, ministers will need to actively plan for this by giving up teaching and meeting commitments when possible. If a church frees the minister up, that minister needs to see and understand the risk the church is taking by changing their thinking on classes and teachers and get on board with it.

Third, ministers will need to leave the office and get out and among the people they shepherd and serve (both in the congregation and outside it; ministers should view themselves as community ministers) and spend their time there.

Fourth, this will mean in some cases that lesson prep will need to be done on the run. I wrote a report on four daily steps for sermon preparation that busy preachers can use to help streamline their sermons. Sermons may need to become shorter and pack more of a punch in a smaller dose.

These are some commitments churches and ministers will need to make in order for the ministers to become the lead servants, sharing the way of Jesus with others by serving them.

What do you think? Would you add or take away any of these commitments?

Relatively few leadership books discuss serving as a foundational discipline. I find this true whether the books are from a business leadership perspective or from a Christian leadership perspective. Of course, most books include a peripheral mention of serving people, but it's often in the sense of meeting needs, and this can be done through a leader's oversight of or delegation to another.

But real leaders lead by taking the initiative themselves and getting their hands dirty. I believe it was Peter Drucker who wrote something like (and I don't know where), "Any leader worth his salt will set up chairs." Serving people in the finer, minute, lesser details is what sets servant leaders apart.

This is the difference between authoritative (positional) leadership and organic, open-source, "from beneath" leadership (servant leadership). Authoritative leaders dictate out of their position and perceived authority. Servant leaders lead by serving underneath someone, serving "up to" them, leading them by exerting influence through the relationship.

Servant leaders have inherent authority because their authority emerges out of who they are and their own personality, not out of a vague or vacuous title given to them by someone else.

What kind of leader are you? How do you influence others?

This continues my series on biblical leadership. To read more in this series, start with my most recent post, Do You Lead "From Above" or "From Below"?

[Note: In this post, I use the terms "elder" and "elder-candidate" interchangeably.]

Elders, and elder-candidates, must be spiritual leaders in their own households. As Paul writes to Timothy, "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family [household], how can he take care of God's church?" (1 Timothy 3:5, TNIV).

Looking at the instructions about elders in 1 Timothy 3:2-5 in terms of "household responsibilities" provides a fresh perspective on how to understand these instructions. In the ancient world, the responsibility to lead and direct a household fell to the males, and, in particular, the father. Households included both males and females, children and slaves. The father was over all and responsible for moral instruction and making sure that members of his household did not bring disgrace upon the household. Fathers would rule their households by authority and discipline.

Paul gives attention to this cultural norm but also subverts it in his instructions to Timothy. He begins by stating that an overseer is to be "above reproach" (1 Tim. 3:2). This is the leading thought for the entirety of the instructions about elders; the remainder of the teaching (1 Tim. 3:2-7) describes what it means or how it looks to be "above reproach."

For good reason, the first block of teaching (there are three blocks, each detailing an area of character) is devoted to household relationships. Being above reproach means, first of all, leading one's family well.

But how is the elder to be above reproach in his family? He is to be "faithful to his wife" (1 Tim. 3:2). Here, the original language refers to a "one-woman-man." To translate it as "husband of one wife" is to interpret the phrase, and a better understanding of the phrase is seen in the TNIV, "faithful to his wife."

Thus, the elder is above reproach in his family by being faithful to his wife. Theologically, this carries more freight than the legal question about marital status. It recalls the Old Testament teaching about faithfulness to God and the covenant, seen, in particular in the prophetic book of Hosea, where faithfulness in marriage is a sign of faithfulness to the covenant.

But faithfulness in marriage contains a lot more than sexual faithfulness. This is clear by Paul's emphasis to Timothy that elders are to be "temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money" (1 Tim. 3:2-3). The key is to see these things evolving out of the elder's responsibilities to his household.

These instructions tie together Paul's teaching about faithfulness to one's wife within the household context by linking instructions about how the elder is to treat his wife with instructions about his children. The emphasis on "managing" the household in 3:4 is intentional. The word sometimes translated as "family" in 3:4-5 should be translated as "household." How an elder deals with the entirety of his household responsibilities is what's important. How he loves, leads, cares for, manages, and handles anything that comes up in the household, from relationships to business arrangements, pertains to his leadership of the church.

The principle is this: the household is a microcosm of the church, which is the macrocosm. Thus, "If anyone does not know how to manage his own [household], how can he take care of God's church?" (3:5) The character traits Paul lists in 3:2-5 pertain to oversight of the household.

We do not fully understand this passage when we appoint elders based on whether a man has been divorced and whether he has "good" kids. This passage teaches us to probe deeper, that we ought to get into an elder-candidate's life, to see how he really is around his family. We need to see how he loves his wife, how he treats his children, how he handles his finances, how he acts towards friends of his children, how he contributes to household chores and business. It's in these concrete and visible things that we see the true (spiritual) leadership of an elder.

This is a continuation of my series about biblical church leadership. Read the most recent article, What is Oversight?, and follow the links to read the rest of the series.

In his book, The Myth of a Christian Nation, Gregory Boyd points out that the kingdoms of this world are built on power and control and that wherever a group of person exercises power over another, there the kingdom of the world is in operation.

[Caveat: He does not consider the exercise of power over others to be wrong at all times. Neither do I. But the danger exists for abuse.]

The kingdom of this world operates "from above," from a position of power and control over others. Jesus, in contrast, represents the kingdom of God, and operates "from below," in service.

Biblical leaders must be continually aware of the ways in which power can take hold in our ministries and lives. Do we look down on people? Do we press for "our way" in church services? Do we assume we know better than others? Do we teach and expect respect and obedience to us as leaders?

Or do we model a better way? a kingdom way?

Jesus repeatedly taught against power from above. In Mark 8-10, he corrected his disciples three times because they overreached for power and control. In one case, pride was in the way of true, genuine service (Mark 8:31-38). In another, they were arguing among themselves about which one had the highest degree of power with Jesus, who influenced him the most (Mark 9:30-37). On the third occasion, two of them bartered with Jesus for what they believed were the highest positions of honor with him; this later led to an argument among the disciples (Mark 10:35-45).

Jesus countered these power-grabs by reminding them that the path to greatness is a path that will never be understood that way by the world. It requires us to serve, to become last if we want to be first.

Biblical leaders will do well to continually remind ourselves to serve others, to operate "from below" them, rather than from above. True leadership follows first, and leads as others follow us in our imitation of Jesus.

What are your thoughts about this?

In this bible study, based on my sermon, The Baaaaad Shepherds, I compare and contrast bad and good shepherding as seen in Ezekiel 34:1-16 and 1 Peter 5:1-4. I included study questions to help us process the material.

This is an expanded bible study based on my earlier post, What is Oversight? I learned a lot from Ron Clark's book, Emerging Elders, and this bible study is based on material from that book.