Leadership or Servanthood?: Walking in the Steps of Jesus

Hwa Yung

The world is obsessed with leaders: identifying them, training them, becoming them. Even in the church, this preoccupation is all-too apparent. Jesus, however, is not interested in developing leaders. Rather, he is interested in the formation of servants.

In this powerful reflection on leadership and servanthood, Dr. Hwa Yung addresses the overemphasis on leadership development within the church. Challenging a culture of hubris, ambition, and self-seeking, he reminds us that ministry is not a call to position and power but to service and obedience. He draws us back to the example of Christ, who came as a servant of God and of his kingdom, who lived in submission to the Father, and who rooted himself in his identity as the incarnate Son of God. Linking spiritual authority to these three characteristics, Hwa Yung offers examples from both Scripture and church history to demonstrate that it is in fact the faithful practice of servanthood that leads to leadership impact.

TAKEN FROM THE PREFACE

Everywhere we go in the church throughout the world today there is this drumbeat of emphasis on leadership and leadership training. This is true of local and national churches, colleges and seminaries, youth groups and parachurch organizations. At group discussions and seminars I have often asked the question, Where does Scripture teach or encourage leadership training in the church? Invariably the participants start scrambling all over the Bible and still end up stumped! I would like to suggest that there is not a single verse in Scripture that teaches this. The emphasis seems to have come about as a result of the church jumping on the corporate and academic bandwagons, and unthinkingly adopting it. And when we look carefully at numerous examples of church leadership throughout the world today, the negative consequences of this trend unfortunately become plain.

Despite the inclusion of the term in the title, this book is not primarily about leadership. Indeed in some ways it strongly critiques the various leadership approaches and concepts that are taught in churches and Christian organizations today. Rather the focus is on servanthood. However a clarification is in order. Many writers have in fact discussed the place of servanthood in Christian ministry. But except for the rare few, most of these writers begin with leadership and then speak of servanthood as one of its indispensable elements. The most obvious of these are the advocates of the “servant leadership” concept. However, this approach means that servanthood is invariably seen or refracted through the lens of leadership, resulting in a distortion of our understanding of the Bible’s teachings on the subject. If we are to grasp clearly what biblical servanthood is about, we must look at what the Bible says about it on its own terms. Only then can we properly comprehend biblical servanthood.

The central emphasis in this book is that the call to discipleship and ministry is first and foremost a call to be a servant of Christ and the church, and not to leadership. Side by side with this emphasis is that ultimately spiritual authority for the advance of the kingdom flows out of our submission to God, just as the incarnate Jesus’s authority flowed out of his total submission to his Father. This does not mean that the church does not need leaders. In fact, we are in desperate need of such today. But true spiritual leadership is exercised or results only when we have learned genuine servanthood and submission.