Defining Kingdom Leadership

"The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with a natural feeling that one wants to serve...as opposed to wanting power, influence, fame or wealth." ~ Robert K. Greenleaf

John Maxwell says, "Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less." The concept of leadership as influence, disconnected from formal positions of power, is perhaps now easier to understand than ever before. In these times of social media influencers, we have all witnessed the tremendous influence a person with a social media account can have on society. However, we all influence people in small ways every day (or not-so-small ways depending on our sphere of influence). With every interaction, we have the power to make the lives of our family, our friends, our co-workers, even the random strangers we meet on the street, better or worse. Everyone has the power to influence people, therefore anyone can be a leader. The more important question for us, however, is not what defines a leader generally but what defines a leader in the kingdom of God.

In Matthew 20:24-28 Jesus gives us a clue. To paraphrase: He says that leaders in the world use their power to make people serve them, whereas, leaders in the kingdom use their power to serve others. The phrase servant leadership was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970 but clearly Jesus taught and exemplified this type of leadership long before the phrase ever became popular.

What makes Jesus such a great leader is His humility. The Lord of the universe gave up His divine privileges as God and came to earth as a servant for our sake. This is what He is getting at in Matthew 20. Jesus is trying to show the disciples that their definition of great is all wrong. The kingdom is not like the world. In the world, a great leader is defined by how many people serve him/her but in the kingdom, a great leader is defined by how many people she/he serves.

This concept of serving others instead of serving ourselves may sound simple but actually having the humility and selflessness to consistently be this type of leader is by no means easy. It is more counter-cultural than we think. What would it look like as a leader in the Body of Christ to live daily to serve other people's needs, goals, and dreams? What would it look like as a kingdom leader in the marketplace to work every day with the mindset that you must be consistently adding value to your staff, coworkers, customers, and shareholders?

For the remainder of this plan, we will explore how to intentionally become more of a Christ-like leader and steward our power of influence for the maximum benefit of those around us.

Journal wIth Holy Spirit: When you think about having great power to influence people's lives what feelings come up for you?