A Call to Servant LeadershipSample

Leaders Move People

Think about the Instagram influencers you follow, and the ways they’ve moved you (physically or ideologically) from one place to another. The truth is that a leader is a person who, with God-given capacity and responsibility, responds to a situation with the aspiration of moving people towards God’s intentions for them. From biblical leaders like Moses, Nehemiah, and others, we can learn what it means to be propelled, not by selfish presumption, but by divine purpose.

Moses grew up in a privileged Egyptian household, then fled to the wilderness where he became a shepherd. I often wonder what would’ve happened to Moses if he hadn’t had the burning-bush encounter with God. But God showed up unmistakeably and brought specific elements of His people’s situation – and of their suffering – to Moses’ attention. In fact, Moses owed his position of leadership to the bad position of God’s people, enslaved as they were to the Egyptians, and many leaders since Moses have risen to leadership because of the adverse situation of the people they felt compelled to serve.

Moses was a prayer warrior and a prophet and a miracle worker, and yet his leadership wasn’t defined by any of these things, as important as they all were. Rather, his leadership was defined by how he moved God’s people into freedom. The elements (or tools or processes) of leadership are just a means to an end. The end is God’s people arriving at the destination God has for them. It’s important that we don’t focus too much on the tools of leadership, instead of focusing on the place to which we’re taking people.

Interestingly, Moses never entered the Promised Land. His vision for the people wasn’t about him, and it outlived him. Some leaders, on the other hand, end up in the metaphorical Promised Land, while the people they’re supposedly leading are still in Egypt. Propelled by purpose not presumption, a true leader leaves no one behind. A leader is a bridge between the people’s past and the people’s future. They’re a sponsor of destiny, and their leadership is defined by how people’s lives have been transformed under their influence.

When we lead the way Jesus intends us to lead, we have a position in mind for others, not for ourselves. May God grant us insight and discernment to identify where He wants to take His people, and wisdom to move them in the right direction, towards the right destination. And may we have the selfless strength to lay ourselves down as a bridge between people’s past and their brighter future, reminding them that there is always hope.