DOING Disciplines of a Serving Leader

At the DOING level of serving leadership, we look at two key disciplines: Establishing supportive relationships and expressing unconditional love.

No one should experience life or leadership alone. We need people around us for accountability and support. In Mark 3:13-19, Jesus chose 12 disciples to be with him and join him in his mission and in Luke 10:1 we see him sending out the 70 “missionaries” two by two. If Jesus—Son of God—needed people around him, how much more should we. Leadership was never designed to be a solo journey.

In John 17:11 and 21-23, we see Jesus praying four times that his disciples would be unified just as he was in complete unity with his Father. Unity is essential for effective mission. Consider how Jesus must have sadly looked down over the centuries of time while repeating this prayer for unity. The church has always struggled with unity and therefore it's mission. We must never forget Christ's words in John 13:35—"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

The other essential discipline of a serving leader is expressing unconditional love. You may remember that at the KNOWING level we talked about experiencing unconditional love. We must first experience God's unconditional love in our own lives before we can extend it to others. In one of Jesus' highest expressions of unconditional love, he washed his disciples' feet (John 13:1-17). It was the ultimate act of serving leadership, doing what a slave would typically do for his master.

[Next week we will turn to the second phase of the Serving Leadership Journey: Developing Trusting Relationships.]