Talking About Servant Leadership

BY JOHN M. FOWLER

hen she graduated from college in 1958, Nancy received a surprising gift. Her missionary parents in Argentina offered to take her to attend the 48th General Conference (GC) session that convened in Cleveland, Ohio. Fresh with dreams for her life that only an Adventist college can give, Nancy was numbed with an awe and wonder at seeing thousands upon thousands of Adventist believers gathered from all over the world to worship, to praise, and to elect world leaders for her church. As Nancy walked her way through the vast throng of saints, she met Jesus in a special way.

That was only part of the story. Amid the thousands of God's saints in Cleveland, she also met a young man, fresh from college too, from Chile in South America. The two became friends, and after a year or so, they were married.

That was almost 46 years ago. The Adventist glue stuck them together in an inseparable devotion to mission, witness, service, and leadership of the Adventist Church in four continents.

Drs. Nancy and Werner Vhymeister stand as a dynamic example of what Adventism does-in bringing people together, in abolishing barriers, in preparing for global service.

Service and servant leadership were much the tone of the 58th General Conference session at St. Louis. Consider the theme, "Transformed in Christ." What motivated the leaders to choose the theme of the current session? I put the question to Elder Jan Paulsen, the newly reelected president. His answer was simple and direct: "The Lord we worship must be seen in the transformed lives we lead and in the unselfish service we render. I want a church without frontiers-inclusive in fellowship, mission-minded in life and service, transformed by the grace, love, and power of the living Lord."

The apostle Paul, who concluded his grand presentation of righteousness by faith with a call that believers should not be "conformed to the world" but "transformed" in order to reveal "the perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2), would have said a loud Amen to this session's theme that calls for a life of service and servant leadership.

The GC leaders, in planning the 58th session, intentionally devoted considerable time for this theme to penetrate the mind and soul of the delegates so that as they disperse back to the ends of the earth, the mission of Adventism will take on a new focus: a life that lives by its faith, and life that witnesses for what it believes.

Yesterday, the first full day of the business session, began the first of five plenary sessions, devoting 90 minutes each morning profiling the Adventist leadership: what are its fundamental characteristics, its motivations, its style, its directions, its empowering? Above all, can an Adventist leader afford to be a political or economic or technological supremo? Or must he or she renounce leadership as defined by the world and echo, reecho, and live by the words of the One who said, "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

President Paulsen, in his keynote address on the profile of Adventist leadership, stressed how crucial it is for the church to develop leaders who will assume as their primary assignment reflection of "love, devotion, and loyalty to the Lord and His church." The church, statisticians project, will have some 50 million members in three sessions from now, and about 85 percent of them would have been members only for less than 15 years. The church of the future is a young church, demanding of its leaders character, integrity, humility, vision, and faithfulness.

How shall we develop that kind of leadership? The road begins with me. With each individual. As if to emphasize that point the 58th session's floor is considering at the time of going to press a new statement of Fundamental Beliefs on "Growing in Christ"-in a life of prayer, study, worship, witness, spiritual warfare. Among other things, it is a call to take up the towel and wash some lowly feet, to share the bread and wine of community, to take up the cross and walk that lonely path, to celebrate the risen Lord, and to hope for the new dawn that will forever bring a transformation that will be our eternal reward.

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John M. Fowler is an associate director of the General Conference Education Department.