Servant Leadership Part 11: Healing Series

Servant Leadership – Part 11

Healing

I have been preaching on the aspects of Servant Leadership, for the past many sessions that I have got an opportunity here. And we are in the lent season. So I was thinking, what is the most appropriate Servant Leadership Characteristic fitting the season of Lent. I think I have the answer, it is ability to heal. I am not talking about miracle healing here. I am talking about a Servant Leader’s ability to heal oneself and others, emotionally.

Learning to heal is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is the potential for healing one’s self and others. In the book "The Servant as Leader", the author, Greenleaf writes, "There is something subtle communicated to one who is being served and led if, implicit in the compact between the servant-leader and led is the understanding that the search for wholeness is something that they have."

We live in a world full of wounded spirits. I am sure each one of us sitting here, has been wounded in spirit one time or the other. There has been that one time when we wished for that healing touch, bleeding internally. Servant Leaders emerge when they are able to understand the cause of the wounds and are able to lead the wounded towards a healing experience. For this first we got to understand the types of wounds that people can get infected with. Pastor Rick Aitken of True Haven Church lists these five areas as the main causes of wounding.

1. Wounds caused by what you have done, or got yourself involved in.

2. Wounds others have caused to you.

3. Wounds caused by life in this world – accidents, disability, sickness, loss of significant people, natural disasters, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

4. Wounds caused by generational sins. “Sins of the fathers visited on succeeding generations” Exodus 34:7, Psalm 79:8

5. Attacks of spiritual forces. “War wounds‟. Ephesians 6:16 speaks of „flaming arrows of the evil one‟ being shot at us.

You could add to this list, I am sure all of us would have gone through one or the other wound in our lives.

Dr Steve Brown, A professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary lists as many as 12 prisons where Christian put them selves into. Healing means, being able to release our fellow beings from the prisons they have put them selves into. The prisons are

1. Prisons of “What we do”

1.1. Prison of Sin : Every one here has a secret, and if you every one else about it, you will either be out of here, or be suicidal. Satan uses the all prevailing sin to keep us believing that we are not good enough to be Christians. “Christians are good. I am not good because I have sinned, and hence I am not a Christian”

1.2. Prison of Guilt: I am not just talking about the guilt that follows sin. There are people who go to the extent of feeling guilty for some thing that they had nothing to do with. You may not believe this, but, I am sure there are Christians who probably believe that the Tsunami in Japan happened because of something that they did, or did not do. They did not pray enough, they did not work on getting the gospel to Japan in time etc.. whatever. Satan uses our feeling of Guilt to keep us bound to him.

1.3. Prison of Failure : The feeling that we do not deserve success because of the sin we have committed. The feeling that we are do not measure up to the high standards of our God.

2. Prisons of what we think

2.1. Prison of the Past: Our child hood memories, the pains that we have suffered in the past, broken relationships etc

2.2. Prison of self abasement: I am not worthy of anything. I am worm

2.3. Prison of Perfection: I serve a perfect God and hence everything I do should be perfect, and if not, I am not good enough for my God

3. Prisons of how we relate to others

3.1. Prison of Fear: I am afraid of what others may think of me.

3.2. Prison of approval: Will my actions be approved by others?

3.3. Prison of obligation: “He/she has been good to me, I got to return the favour.”

4. Prisons of how others control us

4.1. Prison of rules : The do’s and the don’ts that we have always grown up with

4.2. Prison of Religion: The rituals, the symbols

4.3. Prison of Gurus: the heroes and heroines that we look upto.

So how we do really get out of the prisons that we put ourselves into? How do we heal ourselves of the wounds that we have caused ourselves or have been caused by others to us?