Follow this from my blog:Servant leadership is leadership by example. It is a form of leadership modeled after Jesus Christ. It is a life that blesses others, matures believers, disciples and of humble service. a servant leader is one who empowers others for effective ministry/service through a personality that is itself empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The goal of servant leader according to Ephesians 4: 12-13 is to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God.
Challenges to biblical servant leadership include leaders failure to have a vision and a mission to grow others as servant leaders in established institutions. Servant leaders set goals for others to follow, this view of leadership is about the opposite of the African world view on leadership. On this, Wilburn, (1971:109) said “The man with vision sees more than facts, figures, and faces, He sees potential, capacity, implications, and direction. He is able to project himself into tomorrow and into other men’s sees.” He then further said, to be capable to see this kind of vision, a leader must see vision through spiritual insight.
Challenge of been misunderstood is ever there. If you do the right thing all the time, you become an offense to someone who hates change. Also there may be challenge of suspicion where a leader is challenged to make a difference between his ministry and the one next door. Competition has been so evident in ministry nowadays. You must know where you come from,where you are and where you are heading to.
Challenge of underdevelopment of human resources-It has been discovered that large Church congregations have the tendency to hinder the development of emerging leaders as many members may be overlooked, under nurtured, and ill prepared, this is a serious challenge. This has led to the exit of many youth from orthodox churches and emergence of many mushroom churches.
The challenge of individualism is affecting building teams that can be a means of bridging generational gap; on this, Sweet, Leonard. (1999) says “To build a great church, build great teams” (:192). To achieve this, it takes leaders to “help others to look at each other not as separate entities, but as a series of parallel processing organisms where everything is connected to everything else” the collaborative personality has shifted from autonomy to autopoiesis that is, from an independent self to an embedded relational self (:193). This implies that a collaborative leader’s language has changed from I, or me to we, or us.
