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“You
have shamed us,”
began the bishop as he shook my hand following two days of teaching on the
leadership style of Jesus.
 We
were in the city of Embu, in the Central Provinces of Kenya, and Christian
leaders from the area had gathered to learn about the leadership model lived out
by Jesus.
This
very sincere man of God whose churches included many among the Maasai, a people
who have changed little over the last several thousands of years, realized that
they had been following the “Fallen World” model of leadership. The top-down,
autocratic style that is prevalent in Africa but also in the U.S. and Europe, in
churches as well as businesses and schools, is not the way Jesus taught us to
lead. This realization led him to repentance and a commitment to change and
follow Jesus’ example (John 13:15).
At the
break during our second day of teaching, a middle-aged man came to me and said,
“I am in the middle of a leadership crisis, can you help?” When we were able to
sit down just before lunch, he explained that he had come to the Christian
Retreat Center where we were conducting our classes to fast and pray about the
leadership crisis he was facing in his church. He said he was surprised to find
that we were offering leadership training at the Center and decided to enroll.
After listening to his story
and praying with him, I referred him to my Kenyan colleague for counsel on the
Kenyan legal system. That afternoon, as he sat in the front row, I saw a new
man—he was reborn! Obviously, he had been refreshed by the Holy Spirit. Our
only contribution was to listen and pray—the LORD did the rest. He is
faithful, isn’t He?
My wife
and I were privileged to return to the
International Christian Ministries
Seminary in Kitale, Kenya, to present “A Return to Servant Leadership” to class
BA07. Twenty-three pastors, women’s ministry leaders, missionaries, and lay
leaders gathered for the intense, nine-day class.
The
seminary is structured to accommodate working Christian leaders who leave their
churches for five weeks, four times a year, while in residence in Kitale. Over
a period of five years they can earn their BA degree.
We were
excited to learn that our students from February 2004 were also to be in
residence during the time we were there. It was encouraging to hear their
stories of how they are implementing servant first leadership in their churches.
 One
pastor, whose church we visited in Kisumu, told me that he had instituted a
policy that one day a week the church staff places itself at the disposal of the
custodian. He assigns the jobs beginning with the senior pastor who always
cleans toilets. He said that this simple example of the staff serving the needs
of the people had helped to transform the culture of his church and their
understanding of the role of leadership.
_____________________________
One of
the joys of teaching in Africa is that what is learned is immediately put into
practice.
Last
November I was teaching in the ancient port city of Mombassa. At the end of the
second day, a young pastor introduced himself and thanked me for the new
knowledge on leadership that he had gained over the course of the past two
days. He then told me that the evening of our first day’s teaching, he had a
scheduled meeting with his elders to discuss a very controversial issue. He had
spent much time in prayer, as he was worried that the meeting would dissolve
into a shouting match and hurt feelings with no resolution of the issues at
hand. He said, “I decided to apply the principles you taught that day
and the meeting went great! We all came to agreement on what needed to be done
and no one got upset.”
Our
tendency in the West after attending a conference or seminar is to say, “Well
that was nice,” and add the notebook to our bookshelf collection and never give
the teaching another thought. Not so in Africa. What gets taught gets
implemented.
_____________________________
May the
LORD bless you richly as you pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who
daily face seemingly insurmountable odds to bring the Gospel to a hungry
continent.
In His
service,
John
Sullivan
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