Servant Leadership: New Leadership Model for Our Challenging Times

Ruth D. Anderson, Ph.D.
Originally Published in News & Record, Greensboro, North Carolina August 25th, 2011

Since 1992, The Servant Leadership School of Greensboro, has been offering classes, weekend workshops, training and retreats on various aspects of servant leadership in our community. For the past twenty years, the school has nurtured a generation of servant leaders who have made a significant impact on our community.

May Toms started to take servant leadership classes in 2002 and says “this school has been life-changing for me.” She describes how, in this community of support and learning, she felt called to end her career of 24 years and “joyfully” venture forth exploring other areas of work and mission. She has been trained as a Stephen Minister and volunteers extensively with Greensboro Urban Ministry and Guilford Interfaith Hospitality Network. She credits the spiritual practices and the support of other like-minded seekers in servant leadership with helping her discover a place of both inner and outer strength. May competes in triathlons and is an avid cyclist.

Another servant leadership student, Tricia Lindley, fresh out of college and working as an Americorps volunteer, finds that the principles and practices she learns from the school provides a framework for her interest in social justice issues. As a person of faith, she wanted a place to explore, with others, what it means to be a Christian in these troublesome times. Lindley wanted to “put legs on her faith.” She explains that she is most grateful for learning strategies to use to “pause and be present” to Divine Presence always available–even in the middle of some perplexing social and cultural issues.

The Servant Leadership School of Greensboro invites participants into a deeper relationship with God and others in an ecumenical Christian community where together all explore both an inward journey of personal transformation and an outward journey of life-giving service to the world. This powerful mix of inward and outward journey has supported persons called to serve in ministries of compassion, justice and the alleviation of suffering as well as those called to practice servant leadership in the workplace, in neighborhoods, in the educational system and in our own families. Mary’s House, which provides transitional housing and life-skills training for women and their children, emerged when a small group of people prayed for a way to help homeless mothers in our community. The Servant Center, which houses homeless men who need medical care and operates a food pantry, grew out of a person’s call to provide grocery assistance for low-income people. Higher Ground, a house and ministry day-care center and retreat for persons infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, flowed out of a woman’s deep desire to help those with AIDS. Healing Ground, a retreat ministry, came into being under the guidance of two women who felt that retreat work, in the midst of the natural beauty of the outdoors, was what God had in mind for their lives. A group of volunteers tutor twice each week at Partnership Village, a housing complex for formerly homeless families. This work emerged from a servant leadership class on Spiritual Activism. Currently, another group is “holding the question” about what microfinancing might look like in our community after discussing the book Half the Sky last Spring. All of these ventures were “birthed” and supported through the discernment and support of the servant leadership community.

Frank Dew, Chaplain at Greensboro Urban Ministry, and teacher at The Servant Leadership School describes his take on servant leadership: “Most of the leaders that we recognize in our society have servants. The model for understanding the meaning of servant leadership is most clearly seen in Jesus—and in how we might respond—or serve– the needs of others.” Likewise, The Reverend Charlie Zimmerman, pastor of First Lutheran Church, says that the school has been “transforming—powerful—life-changing” for many in his church. He claims that several people in his congregation have “found their particular call to serve in the community” through their servant leadership classes and experiences.

The Servant Leadership School of Greensboro 2012 offerings can be seen on servantleadergreensboro.com, or by contacting The Servant Leadership School of Greensboro, 215 W. Fisher , Greensboro, NC 27401 to receive a brochure or call 336-275-0447.