Servant leadership is difficult. It is rare, often inconsistent, and—if we are honest—it does not always produce the results we hope for. So what makes servant leadership possible? And what sustains it over the long haul?
If I had to name one word—at the risk of oversimplification—it would be love. What makes service and sacrifice for others possible? Love. What makes suffering endurable? Love. What makes the cross even conceivable? Love. Without love, it is hard enough to live well with family and friends, let alone with opponents or enemies.
Love is so central to the Christian faith that we can become numb to its significance. Yet love must be rightly ordered. Each of us chooses what we love, and in the Augustinian tradition, we become what we love. Love shapes us; disordered love can break us. God’s love is forgiving, healing, and transforming. When leaders are rooted in God’s love in Christ, our fragile loves are redirected and renewed. We love because he first loved us and because we live and move and have our being in the One who is love—along with holiness, truth, grace, wisdom, and strength.
When Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” that included our ability to love well and consistently. But with God, all things are possible.
I don’t know how you are doing, but I can say this: I am not very good at love. Loving myself comes easily; loving God and others—especially difficult people—does not.
As someone who has followed Jesus for more than fifty years, I am still learning the ways of love and still have a long way to go. I often find myself relearning lessons.
This is not a performance mindset. I am saved by grace alone. Still, I take seriously Paul’s words in Galatians that “in Christ Jesus” the only thing that counts is “faith working through love” (5:6). A few verses later, Paul reminds us that we are set free so that “through love [we] serve one another” (5:13).
I do not know whether we are living in the “end times.” That question is above my theological pay grade. But Jesus warned that the love of many would grow cold (Matthew 24:12), and Paul cautioned that people would increasingly be lovers of self, money, and pleasure rather than lovers of God or of what is good (2 Timothy 3:1–4).
The world needs love. God is love. In love, the Father sent the Son. In love, the Son came to us. And now the Son says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). This is the heart of leadership in the way of Jesus—leading in, with, by, and for love. Love that cares, connects, forgives, heals, and empowers. In other words, the way of servant leadership.
Andrew Murray wrote With Christ in the School of Prayer. Borrowing that image, servant leaders are those who are with Christ in the School of Love. It is a school from which we never graduate—but the Teacher is extraordinary.
