When in Texas….
April 20th, 2007
Liz and I returned Wednesday from a couple of days of retreat in Texas with a few other pastors and their wives. It is always a joy to be with these colleagues. And it is a double pleasure when we go to Texas. As they say, “Texas is an attitude.”
When we speak of “having an attitude” it is normally with a negative connotation. Yet the Bible tells us to have the attitude of Jesus. That is the attitude and action of a servant. While in the Houston airport, I picked up a copy of INC. magazine. In it, I found an interesting article on managing. The title was “In Praise of Selflessness: Why the Best Leaders Are Servants.” They admitted this concept was not new but came from the authors of the New Testament. The author went on to say great leaders are foot-washers!
The writer spoke of three paradoxes for leaders. 1. The higher you rise, the harder you must work for others. 2. Although you hold formal authority over employees, you must treat them like customers and when reasonable do their bidding. 3. When your desires and the needs of your organization conflict, your desires draw the low card. He went on to say when a leader begins to ask how he can help those who work for him amazing things start to happen.
While we were in Texas for the retreat Pastor Michael Lewis was our host. He and his wife, Liliana, were wonderful foot-washers. They planned and took care of our needs. I returned to Olive revived and committed to be a better servant leader. I challenge you to do the same.
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant [foot-washer] and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8, NAS)
Pastor Ted Traylor