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Serving Leaders
One form of servanthood is serving men and women of God. The apostle Paul calls Timothy a son who has served him in the gospel:
...as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel.
(Phil. 2:22)
Timothy served Paul, Joshua served Moses, Elisha served Elijah, and David served Saul. There is always someone with whom we are called to serve, a person and his or her vision. We are called to help them achieve their purpose. For the most part these are wonderful people.

However, there are also leaders who are difficult to serve. It's an understatement to say that David found his leader, Saul, difficult. Saul tried to murder his young servant David many times. Yet this was the secret to the forging of great strength in the future king. These are crucial seed times in our lives.

The way we treat those who are over us becomes the way we are treated by those we lead in later years. We reap what we sow! If we help people achieve their vision, others will help us to achieve ours.

I once heard a story about a young employee who was not trained in anything and had no educational qualifications, but who loved his work at the service station pumping gas, cleaning windows, and tidying the yard. He would arrive early to prepare the washroom and get everything ready for the day, and he would leave late, making sure everything was locked up.

The service station owner, who had no family, unexpectedly passed away. In his will, he left the station not to the head mechanic, not to the bookkeeper, not to the apprentices, but to the inexperienced, unqualified lad who had always gone the extra mile in serving the boss and the thing he loved—his garage.

There will always be people we are called to serve, whom we will help to accomplish their purposes. Mentoring is vital to success. However, this involves more than just chatting with a more experienced person. The mentoring relationship is opened up through serving. People sometimes ask me to mentor them. All they need do is to help me do what I do, and they'll find themselves in my world.

They'll learn more by serving than by any other means. A good "mentee" makes a great mentor. No matter how good a person's coach might be, if the person has no heart to serve and to learn, then they will fail to be coached.

Serving Each Other
...through love serve one another. (Gal. 5:13)
After Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, He commanded them to do the same to each other. This is not really about washing feet. It's about serving one another.

In the business world, it's not the company that provides job security—only customers can do that! If customers are well served they come back; if not, they don't. Serving people means solving their problems.

Catherine DeVrye also relates that:
Research from Wharton Business School shows that 95 percent of customers who have a complaint handled efficiently and promptly will not only continue to do business with an organization but will become even more brand loyal. It costs five times more to obtain a new customer than to retain an existing one. It is critical that everyone in our organization understands the role each of us plays in keeping existing customers. It is critical to genuinely care about each and every customer. Customers appreciate quality and service long after they have forgotten the price or cost to them. Organizations that are prospering not only talk quality, they deliver it continually.
Service focused companies go out of their way to hear customer complaints. Most customers—96 percent, in fact—don't bother to complain to the goods or service provider; they simply take their business elsewhere. No news is not necessarily good news. If we want to be effective in providing answers to people's problems, we need to identify what those problems are. How do we find out? We ask!

Serving each other opens us up to a world of relationships that bring success into our lives.

Serving All
I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more.
(1 Cor 9:19)
Instead of selling Jesus, we should try serving Him to people. Instead of just witnessing to people, we need to be a witness. Francis of Assisi is attributed as saying, "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words."

Serving is helping people at personal cost to ourselves. It involves sacrifice. We send medical teams from our church to refugee camps in Indonesia to treat people with tuberculosis and to prevent others from contracting the disease. When we invite these people to receive Christ, they do so happily.

Those who have understood the power of serving other people can tell this story repeatedly. When we serve others by meeting their needs and healing their hurts, we are effective in connecting them with God. Visible love opens invisible hearts.

Serving is the highest level of meaningfulness for anyone's life. The meaning of life is easy to find if we simply serve others. A life without service is doomed to decay.
The great violinist Nicolo Paganini willed his marvelous violin to the city of his birth, Genoa, but only on the condition that the instrument never be played upon. It was an unfortunate condition, for it is a peculiarity of wood, that as long as it is used and handled, it shows little wear.

As soon as it is discarded, it begins to decay. The exquisite, mellow-toned violin has become worm-eaten in its beautiful case, valueless except as a relic. The moldering instrument is a reminder that a life withdrawn from all service to others loses its meaning.
Source: Top 10 Qualities of a Great Leader by Phil Pringle
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers

Author Biography

Phil Pringle
Web site: Christian City Church
 
My wife, Chris and I, with the kids and some good friends came to Sydney in 1980 to start a church. We had 13 people at our first service but the congregation grew rapidly and we moved buildings, bought land and built a school. We began planting churches around Sydney, then Australia, then the world; we now have close to 300 congregations in our movement. Our 2020 Vision is to plant and grow 1000 churches and we�re on target to meet this.
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