In its early years around 1912 our church, in all probability, was the church of the servants in Knighton, while the
non-servants went to the other (posher?) church. If so, then St Guthlac’s might have been
called at the outset the ‘servants’ church’. It may have been a bit like the ‘downstairs’ bit in an episode of Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey. What I would like to suggest is that for our continued progress as a church we need to
be not the ‘servants’ church’ but a servant church. There is an important
distinction between the two.
We have heard some of the great words of Jesus so
often that it is sometimes difficult to appreciate their impact on those who
first heard his message and the revolutionary implications of what he said. ‘Whoever
wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all’ (Mark 9:35). Two millennia after
the death of Christ the implications of these words are still far from being
worked out in society at large, which seems to have ignored what he said
altogether. Leadership is confused with power and status. The world is still inhabiting
the mindset of the disciples who argued with one another on who was the
greatest. As James remarks in his epistle, ‘where there is
envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every
kind’ (James 3:16). This happens in churches when the spirit of the world is allowed to
enter and to infect our personal and spiritual relationships.
Yet the
leadership model exemplified in the New Testament first by John the Baptist and
then by Jesus is counter-intuitive and hostile to the existing definitions. John
the Baptist said clearly of Christ, ‘He must increase,
but I must decrease’ (John 3:30). To be a forerunner or prophet means that you
must be willing to stand down and be displaced by the person who succeeds you.
One writer, Alan E. Nelson,
states: ‘You can be a servant and not a leader. You can be a leader and not a
servant. But to be a servant leader, you must first become a servant.’ We have
in Christ the model of what we mean by this. At its best, the church on Sunday
is a display of what sacrificial service looks like. The church is a servant
organisation. We are here to care for one another. But it is more than this. It
is a voluntary servant organisation. The world can scarcely comprehend this.
This is because we live in a highly commercial world where time is money and
time is only exchanged for money. (Your solicitor adds up the time he or she
spends talking to you and you are charged for this along with everything else
that is done, each letter, each advice and so on).
Yet in a church, an organization
of committed volunteers, people are not serving for money. It is not the
expectation of material reward which causes them to serve. It is their devotion
to Christ! Those who give their time for this Church do so for no reward but
that of serving Christ. It is a powerful message to the world in our 100th
year. We are indebted to the
work that is put in by all our volunteers on behalf of our community church. It
is a great blessing, although it can never be taken for granted. We are
insufficiently numerous. People do get tired and we need a wider circle of
volunteers. The more volunteers we have, the greater the progress we will make
as a church.
If we want to continue to
grow into a stronger, healthier church, we must continue on the path of being a
humble, servant-spirited church. The servant relationship is where a group of
people choose to serve each other in their different roles. Servant ministry is
about a group of people working together and assisting each other for the
purpose of achieving something greater than each could possibly achieve on their own.
Recently we held a coffee
morning for some of the folk from the care homes in our area and it was a highly successful event. We need to continue
the activity in the future as an ongoing part of the life of a community
church. Why is it so important? Many of those in care homes are relatively
isolated with few friends as visitors and perhaps little or no family to call
on them. There was a genuine joy among those who we served and chatted to. They
had a good time out. It was something different for them. It was a new
stimulus.
Being
a true servant is seeing people as opportunity for a relationship rather than
just as needy people we walk by every day. Being able to see them with Christ’s
eyes shows other people His presence within the depths of our hearts. Serving
others is one of the most effective ways to lead them to the Lord. Christ is most effectively revealed to others through actions rather than words. ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in
humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to
your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you
that was in Christ Jesus [who] emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being born in human likeness…’ (Philippians 2:3-5,7).
Let us pray. May God help us to be a strong, healthy, growing
church. To achieve this we need to become servants of others. For some of us this
will come easily because God has gifted us in this way. For the rest of us it
will require more effort. To be the kind of servants God calls us to be we need
to be humble and forgiving. For our church to continue to grow and to be all
that God wants us to be will depend upon our willingness to serve. Father, please
continue to work on this to make it happen. Amen.
