Kingdom Servant Leadership!
“People are brought up and taught to receive—not to serve.” HUH??
To operate as leader and servant, is to be a loyal and helpful devotee, to be humble before God, to be ready to act as God nudges and inspires, to help meet the needs of other people, and to remember that it is not about money or reward.
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)
Servanthood adds value to people. It is not about position or skill. It's about attitude! Leaders seek ways they can add value to others. A true servant’s heart is essential for ministry, and allows the person to put aside his or her own agenda in order to carry out Christ’s mission. The best leader in the church is the one who is willing to serve.
In Acts 20:35, the apostle Paul is speaking to the church of Ephesus when he quotes Jesus by saying: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” With Paul's last words to the Ephesians, he commends them in the word of grace, and uses his own life and ministry as an example of how we ought to give generously.
“And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that their hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things, I have shown you that by working hard in this, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:32-35)
When Jesus says our giving is more blessed, He’s telling us that there is more happiness and joy to be found in God when we give, rather than when we receive.
the greatest leader and servant of all time—is Jesus Christ
Servanthood is an attitude exemplified by Christ “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. (Phil. 2:6-7)
Ministry, is generally referred to as servanthood, or service given in love. Serving others is the very essence of ministry. All believers are called to ministry (Math.28:18-20), and therefore, we are all called to be servants for the glory of God.
Living is giving; all else is selfishness and boredom
Jesus communicates the importance of serving others—
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.…….truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”
We believe people have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all, especially the poor and vulnerable.
To engage in service, is to reflect on one's own experience and that of others, and to move toward action on behalf of peace, justice, truth, reconciliation, and love. A life of service, is lived with an attentiveness to the common good and with a deep and abiding faith. When we serve, we look outside of ourselves, beyond our own problems, and seek to bring value to others.
Service means choosing to do something for someone else (often in secret) without expecting anything else in return. Service involves seeing a need and meeting that need without expecting thanks or any type of reciprocity.
As five-fold Leaders and servants, We are called to equip the saints— not enable them.
ENABLING: means doing something for someone that they could, do for themselves with effort, sacrifice and determination.
EQUIPPING: means accompanying someone and walking through things together, so they can learn how to do for themselves. Love is a verb. It takes action.
Back in the early 60’s-70’s when resources for blacks were limited and jobs were non existent, the protocol was to go around and ask for handouts, just to maintain. They acted out the “enablement, less-than mentality”—a mental attitude that includes feelings of inferiority.
This is the belief which is thriving in most minority and marginalized communities today, which has led people as well as professing believers to believe that they cannot do anything on their own.
The belief that it is easier and better to stay where you are because it is where you have always been, and that it is where everyone you know has always been (cultural disadvantages that keep one in bondage); therefore you do not know to go after anything different.
In order to prosper in Christ we are mandated to be renewed in our minds with His word and principles.
Enablement means helping someone in such a way that, rather than solving their problem, it perpetuates it, by:
Assisting them in avoiding consequences.
Allowing them to stay in their sins.
Allowing them to avoid what is difficult.
Minimizing their current discomfort, at the risk of their future.
Rescuing them in order to avoid your pain of watching their lessons that they are to learn.
Equipping, on the other hand:
Helps people avoid mistakes.
Speaks the truth in love even when it is difficult.
Motivates by long-term benefits of allowing the persons current pain and discomfort—to avoid it from continuing in their future.
Does what is best for the the individual, regardless of how painful it is to watch the lessons they struggle to learn.
The primary reason we enable someone is because we desire to shelter them from the pain and discomfort that their own actions have brought on themselves. In addition, we don’t take a stand against bad behavior, or say what needs to be lovingly said, because we don’t want them to feel angry, judged or any other negative emotion. So we shut up and say nothing; often while hating ourselves for doing so!
This “misguided act of love” fails to recognize that loving someone without setting healthy boundaries, in order to nurture growth, responsibility, and the ability to be self-sufficient—isn’t love at all!
Loving means being willing to do the hard thing so someone else can step into who God created them to be.
Enabling may mean we’re interfering with the lesson God is trying to teach, in order to help our loved one out of long term pain!
This enabling, less than mentality, then manifests itself in everything they will do, say and think.
The only way anyone will reverse this, is to make an active, lifetime commitment to reprogram their own mind to move beyond the space within the enablement narrative.
The key to finding true freedom and walking in our purpose is to renew our minds with God's Word. (Phil. 4:8)
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom. 12:2)
This steady diet of enablement, has somehow, permeated the corridors of the church. Professed believers, living the “oral religious laws” that were passed down from former slave ancestors, who have not gotten beyond the “first” and “elemental” principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In my own company, my consulting fees range upwards of $$$$–and my targeted markets are faith-driven believers; but I am aware that many are not where they can afford to pay for my services, so here’s how we equip them: we offer complimentary sessions, free training, discounts and resources to co-partner with them to give them the step up they need. Many have come in expecting “free,” because of the marred expectation of what they think a kingdom, faith-focused and driven, company is; and would get angry and retaliatory and insulted that we expected them to pay for consulting time, experience, and wisdom—fees that they were made aware of, and that they entered into contract to pay!
So many did not realize that God had opened the door to their dreams being met, but they had to be willing to do their part!! (sowing and reaping)
We model God’s system of economics and wealth principles, and the Lord uses us, as His vehicle and example for them to follow—that of reestablishing the foundations of one of the first principles of the Gospel—of sowing and reaping!
During my first years of being in business, my colleague and I, had to write off, (in one 1 year)—a whopping $130,000 just in bad contracts/debt incurred from “saints.” (professed believers in Jesus Christ)
These “by faith” people were those who ignored our collection effort, refused to pay, and attempted to discredit us, simply because “they” did not honor their commitment. They gladly received our services, and expected to sow, nothing in return! My colleagues and I became their “villain” because we expected payment for services received! (Lesson-learned for us!)
The phrase “enablement mentality,” is packed with a lot of meaning. It’s a disease, inflicted not only by America, but also within the church!
On the one hand, it is the perception that one must merely accept this mental slavery as their lot in life. It is their acknowledging that things are never going to get any better. It’s their recognizing and accepting, that they can only “get by” to survive.
They don’t really believe things can change, nor in the Almighty God, who has prepared the way of escape! Naturally, there are many who mentally, have given up, even if their hearts yearned for freedom.
However, lest we forget, there were in the past, those who were enslaved, who rose up and revolted against their oppressors. They would not give in, but instead, fought to free themselves and others. (empowerment!)
The systems of enablement won’t give up control easily, and it won’t have to, as long as people are operating in the old “less-than, mentality”—even within the Church!
God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth!
We are not to elevate the ideas of men above the Word of God. Let man be a liar, and God be truth! His Truth fashioned this world, gave His people lordship over it—where we can proclaim Him as Lord, and where He will reign —through us!
Now go and take your city and your mountain.