It has been said that, “A church wrapped up in itself makes a small package—too small, in fact.” Christ has commissioned His church to win the lost for Him. The most effective way to accomplish this mission is through leading in service. To be an effective leader one must have a servant’s heart and a kingdom view. It is not enough to simply ask, “What is best for us,” only for your local congregation. An effective leader needs to see every decision in the light of the church’s mission. Unfortunately many church leaders are like the man who was telling his friend about a speaker he heard on television. “This guy was great,” his friend declared. “He said that all the world’s problems could be reduced to two things—ignorance and apathy. What do you think of that?” The fellow replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” The great temptation is for church members to be satisfied with what they are already doing for others. We are guilty many times of looking out for number one. We try to justify it by saying, “Charity begins at home.” We want to make sure that our own are taken care of and whatever is left we can give to those outside the church. Too many churches never reach out beyond their own comfort and convenience. Biblically qualified leaders know that there needs to be something more. They seek to direct the local church out of the comfort zone of easy Christianity into the thrill of trusting and following Jesus wherever He may lead. Scripture teaches that Servant leaders are the ones the Lord desires to lead the church. Today I would like us to discover the areas of service that effective leaders should lead in.
I. Effective leaders participate in loving service to others.
A. We need to model the type of service that Christ modeled, selfless and motivated by love.
1. CS Lewis put it this way, “The rule for all of us is fairly simple: do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor; act as if you did.
2. At the heart of servanthood is our willingness to go out of our way to meet a need in someone’s life and to accomplish something that needs to be done.
3. The acts in our text do not require any special talent; they are really quite common and are given with no strings attached.
4. Jesus wants us to be personally involved in caring for the needs of others.
5. True servanthood, as is depicted in the Bible is more then just a desire to do what is right. It is dying to ones own desires and attending to the needs of our God and others.
B. For every situation and different need we must strive to offer a service that will reveal God’s love.
1. The greatest motivation for acts of service needs to be sacrificial love.
2. True disciples will love one another and serve the least of the brothers with compassion; in so doing they unconsciously serve Christ.
3. When action oriented compassion is absent, there are definitely some deep rooted spiritual problems.
4. Notice the simple responses God noted in the actions of the righteous. Giving someone a drink, something to eat, clothes to wear and a visit. These are simple and basic things. No pomp, no plaque, no prestige.
5. We need to realize regardless of how unlovely a person is we will never come across a person who is not valuable to God.
6. When Christian people become one in heart & mind, and are committed to service they can unleash a power greater than any in this world.
II. Effective leaders serve by a displaying a commitment to evangelism.
A. It is really easy to become sidetracked from our primary mission.
1. A very wise man gave this practical advice for success in any organization; “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
2. Every Christian needs to remember that our primary mission, “the main thing” is evangelism.
3. A recent survey found that 41% of Americans attend church regularly so that means that 59% of the population is unchurched, so the church needs to remain on task.
4. Growing churches have evangelism as their priority and are willing take bold risks to accomplish their mission.
5. In order to become truly committed to the primary purpose of the church we need to truly adopt the attitude that “people matter to God and therefore they matter to us.”
6. This begins by seeing every person as a unique creation of God that is loved by Him.
7. As leaders we need to have this value instilled within our hearts before we can effectively instill it within the hearts of others.
B. The most effective way to evangelize others is through serving them.
1. At first glance we do not see evangelism in this passage, but if we look deeply enough we see that unselfish service points to Jesus Christ. Isn’t that what evangelism is all about?
2. The serving style of evangelism positively impacts both the servant and the one being served.
3. Uncaring and selfish Christianity fails to attract anyone to Jesus Christ.
4. As leaders we need to be the first to participate in this type of service so we can discover how effective this type of approach really is.
5. The possibilities are endless; the key to success is to be sensitive to the needs of the community, become creative and be willing to take some God honoring risks for the cause of reaching others.
6. The leaders need to keep reminding the people of the importance of our primary mission of evangelism.
7. There is nothing comparable to the adventure of being used by God to contagiously spread His love, truth and life to people. People who matter deeply to Him.
III. Effective leaders serve by promoting discipleship.
A. Discipleship is more than just attending church it is about giving people the essentials for developing a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
1. A disciple, by definition, is a convinced adherent of a school or individual.
2. When we bring a newborn home from the hospital, we don’t just sit down the infant seat and say, “Welcome to the family, Johnny. Make yourself at home. The towels are in the hall closet upstairs, the pantry is right here, the can opener is in this drawer. No crying after 10 p.m. If you have any questions there are lots of people in the family who would love to help you so don’t be afraid to ask.”
3. New believers need someone to give them guidance and help them grow. Like a newborn, they need some personal attention.
4. Disciple ship begins with Christians developing relationships with one another.
5. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7—NIV)
6. As we form relationships we will impact some people by what we say but 90% will be impacted by what we do.
7. The way we will develop disciples is to lead them in an ever-deepening walk with God.
B. Discipleship is about training ordinary everyday Christians to be active in serving and spreading their faith.
1. Just as the people in our text did not give much thought about the acts of service and just did it, disciples display that same characteristic.
2. It is our job to equip you for service, in other words we are to invest our time in giving you the tools to share your faith and serve others.
3. Thom Rainer in his book “Surprising insights from the Unchurched” found that 62% of new Christians remained faithful because they were trained and became active in ministry.
4. Our willingness to serve others, share our faith and to grow as a Christian is a natural outgrowth of the depth of our relationship with Christ.
5. The way for us to grow as Christian is to commit ourselves to actively serving Him and being committed to involvement in active ministry.
In 1921, Lewis Lawes became the warden at Sing Sing Prison. No prison was tougher than Sing Sing during that time. But when Warden Lawes retired some 20 years later, that prison had become a humanitarian institution. Those who studied the system said credit for the change belonged to Lawes. But when he was asked about the transformation, here’s what he said: “I owe it all to my wonderful wife, Catherine, who is buried outside the prison walls.”
Catherine Lawes was a young mother with three small children when her husband became the warden. Everybody warned her from the beginning that she should never set foot inside the prison walls, but that didn’t stop Catherine! When the first prison basketball game was held, she went…..walking into the gym with her three beautiful kids and she sat in the stands with the inmates.
Her attitude was: “My husband and I are going to take care of these men and I believe they will take care of me! I don’t have to worry!”
She insisted on getting acquainted with them and their records. She discovered one convicted murderer was blind so she paid him a visit. Holding his hand in hers she said, “Do you read Braille?”
“What’s Braille?” he asked. Then she taught him how to read. Years later he would weep in love for her.
Later, Catherine found a deaf-mute in prison. She went to school to learn how to use sign language. Many said that Catherine Lawes was the body of Jesus that came alive again in Sing Sing from 1921 to 1937.
Then, she was killed in a car accident. The next morning Lewis Lawes didn’t come to work, so the acting warden took his place. It seemed almost instantly that the prison knew something was wrong.
The following day, her body was resting in a casket in her home, three-quarters of a mile from the prison. As the acting warden took his early morning walk, he was shocked to see a large crowd of the toughest, hardest looking criminals gathered like a herd of animals at the main gate. He came closer and noted tears of grief and sadness. He knew how much they loved Catherine. He turned and faced the men, “All right, men, you can go. Just be sure and check in tonight!” The he opened the gate and a parade of criminals walked, without a guard, the three-quarters of a mile to stand in line to pay their final respects to Catherine Lawes. And every one of them checked back in. Every one!
