"The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant - first to make sure that other people's needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wise, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And what effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or at least not be further deprived?" - Robert Greenleaf, Founder of the Servant Leadership Movement

Monday, March 19, 2012

Empowerment at the Crossroads

Empowerment is one of the characteristics of a Servant Leader. 
To empower or to be empowered generally means: 

To invest with authority; to enable; to render capable or able for some task.  It also implies that when a person is empowered that they have achieved control over their destiny. 


     Jesus modeled for us the servant leader, the transformational leader, empowering his apostles and disciples.
What did Jesus do as a servant leader?
  • HE LISTENED AND HE TAUGHT OTHERS TO LISTEN:  "You are my beloved Son;"  He Taught his disciples to listen and allow those words “you are my beloved" to echo within their lives.   Jesus taught his disciples the “radical equality” of all God’s daughters and sons and gave them but one command, to “love as I have loved.”  
  • HE SHARED with his disciples a new way of life of self-giving love in service to others, “ I have come to serve, not to be served" - showing them by example a way of life – and the cost for choosing that way of life – the cross.  
  • HE EMPOWERED his disciples by sending them out as servant leaders – “Behold, I have given you authority and power” to bring wholeness to the lives of God’s people- serving them so that they could become the people God originally intended them to be – giving them dominion over all the earth – co-creating and co-partnering with God in creating a world of justice, love, and peace. 
Let's look at the Scriptures :

Luke 4:18: 
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me .   He has anointed me to proclaim Good News to the poor.  He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to  deliver those who are crushed.
Matthew 12:19: 
Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight.  I will put my spirit on him and he will proclaim justice  [ right relationship] to the nations.   
Luke 10:7:  
Behold, I have given you authority and power.  [Sharing power and empowering  others to accept wholeness   and integrity in their  personal , professional and spiritual lives]    
     Empowerment  is about entrusting others to recognize their significance and dignity as persons, being able to value and love themselves.  Empowerment is about helping others to re-imagine a way of life that enables them to move into the future- inviting them to share in building a future – a new heaven and a new earth – in which a Beatitude way of life will reign over and against the prevailing thoughts and practices of a society and culture.   Jesus invites us to be part of a bigger picture – God’s vision – for the world.


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