Servant leadership idea right at home in Methodist tradition
6/26/2001
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Servant leadership, a popular concept in higher education circles today, is consistent with Christian theology and United Methodist tradition, according to speakers at an annual institute for representatives of church-related schools.
In introductory remarks at the Institute of Higher Education, the Rev. Jim Noseworthy, staff member of the denomination's Board of Higher Education and Ministry, pointed to the Holy Club created by Methodism's founder, John Wesley, in 18th-century England.
In addition to supporting one another in their spiritual growth and religious life, Noseworthy said the university students were expected to be involved in service to the wider community.
"They visited the poor, worked with children and tutored," he said. Quoting Wesley, he said, "There is no religion but social religion and no holiness but social holiness."
On the American frontier, Methodists adapted Wesley's rules, including directives regarding service, which called them to "do good" in every possible way. "Serving and caring for people in society is basic to Methodist tradition and its institutions," Noseworthy observed.
The theme of the institute, attended by about 150 people, was "Enhancing our capacity to serve: leadership for the common good." The gathering was sponsored by the board's Division of Higher Education, the National Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities of the United Methodist Church, and the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation.
Keynote speaker for the June 24-26 event was Jeffrey P. Miller, a staff member of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership headquartered in Indianapolis.
During the institute's opening session, the board's Office of Loans and Scholarships awarded the annual $5,000 Esther Edwards Graduate Scholarship Award to the Rev. Jennifer Browne, assistant to the president for church and community relations at United Methodist-related Albion (Mich.) College. Browne is pursuing a doctorate from the University of Chicago Divinity School.
The Esther Edwards scholarships are given to encourage women to take leadership roles at United Methodist colleges and universities. Browne, ordained in the United Church of Christ, earned her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and her master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York. Her husband, the Rev. Greg Martin, is pastor of Albion's First United Methodist Church.
A $5,000 Educator of the Year Award was presented by the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation to Samir Saliba, professor of political science at United Methodist-related Emory and Henry College in Emory, Va.
Saliba, a native of Lebanon, earned his undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans and has taught at Emory and Henry for 37 years. The major focus of his work has been on globalization and internationalization. Leadership, he told the institute participants, is provided by individuals who help others see the larger common interest or common good. "We are living in an historical moment now when the answers are not so much technical but spiritual," he said.
Miller enthusiastically espoused the gospel of the Greenleaf center, summarized by its founder, the late Robert K. Greenleaf: "If a good society is to be built, one that is more just and more caring, and where the less able and more able serve one another with unlimited liability, then the best way is to raise the performance as servants of institutions, and sanction natural servants to serve and lead."
Leadership is bestowed on a person who is a true servant, Miller said. Individuals do not become leaders because of the authority given to them but by what they do for others, he said.
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