Good Leaders Serve Twice
Lock-Ins are not my favorite thing to do in the first place, so the fact that the students had trashed the sanctuary with candy wrappers and half-empty pop cans really made me mad. We had already “served” these teenagers by staying up all night with them, and now we needed to clean up after them?!
Yep.
“Good leaders serve twice.” Not just the first time, but the second time as well. Your “humble” initial service does not “excuse” you from Christ-like service the second time!
Jesus serves his disciples in mundane ways, so that he can give something away (John 13). You serve someone in order to serve them. Only by washing feet can you serve on a higher level. It put Christ at a place where the disciples could receive him (at a level where they could receive).
We have to do the mundane before the profound.
Invest in people, so we can invest in people.
This is part of a series called Patty Proverbs. When I was in college @ Multnomah University in Portland, our professor, Dr. Steve Patty, shared some proverbial leadership wisdom with his students. These are his “proverbs.”
It’s like “go the extra mile”. And that’s good. But another idea would be if you could catch the little darlings before they left, ask for “volunteers” to help clean up. And if some did volunteer, give them some sort of recognition, maybe the following meeting in front of all the other kids. This way all the children have a chance to learn a good lesson — that volunteering to help is fun and has rewards of its own. If I had been there, I would have givens you a hand, Jeremy!! You deserve the best.
It works! It is a lot of work, but in the long run it is worth it. You never live down leaving before the job is DONE.
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