Servanthood Leadership Order Printed Copy

Author: Roger E Dickson
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About the Book

"Servanthood Leadership" by Roger E. Dickson explores the concept of leading with humility, compassion, and service. The book explains how servant leaders prioritize the needs of others and empower their teams to reach their full potential. Through real-life examples and practical advice, Dickson demonstrates how adopting a servant leadership approach can lead to more successful and fulfilling leadership.

J.I. Packer

J. I. Packer comes from humble origin. Packer claims to have been born into a lower middle class family. The family lived in the central part of Gloucester, a cathedral city in the southwest of England. Packer's parents made it clear that any advanced education would depend on scholarships. Packer received the scholarships that enabled him to be educated at Oxford University. Packer endured a life-changing accident at the age of seven. On September 19, 1933, a schoolyard bully chased Packer onto the busy London Road, where he was hit by a bread van and knocked to the ground. He sustained a serious head injury and has had a noticeable dent in the side of his skull ever since. Packer has taken a range of disappointments in life in stride, and he says regarding his childhood accident that "it was part of life." Packer was converted two weeks after arriving at Oxford University as a student. Packer was raised in a nominally rather than genuinely Christian family and church. When he entered Oxford University, he thought of himself as a Christian because he had defended Christianity in intellectual debate at school. While attending an evangelistic service sponsored by the campus InterVarsity group, he realized that he was not a true Christian. By God's grace, he left the service as a believing and saved Christian. Packer served a three-year tenure as a parish minister in a suburb of Birmingham. Because Packer's primary career has been as a teacher, author, and speaker, most people think of him as an academician only. But Packer also had a brief career as an Anglican minister. Almost immediately after his conversion, Packer began a process leading to ordination in the Church of England. As he was finishing his Oxford dissertation on Richard Baxter, he began a three-year parish ministry as an Anglican curate in suburban Birmingham. Packer's first book sold 20,000 copies in its first year and has never been out of print since then. An address that Packer gave to a student group in London in 1957 caught the attention of an Inter-Varsity editor, who requested that Packer turn the address into a pamphlet. Instead, Packer worked on the material for eighteen months and handed over a book-length manuscript to the editor. The book was entitled Fundamentalism and the Word of God. Packer has published so much that it is impossible to compile a bibliography of his writings. In both his speaking and writing, Packer has followed a policy of entering virtually every door that has opened before him. The list of his publications defies tabulation, partly because of the large number of items, partly because the range of genres is so broad that it is hard to know what constitutes a publication as opposed to a privately printed document, partly because Packer has often published the same book in both the U. S. and Britain under different titles, and partly because many of his writings have been republished, sometimes with new titles. Packer is an unsung hero as well as a famous man. The fame of Packer is well attested. Typing his name into a search engine yields a fluctuating number of results day-by-day, but we can at least say that the number is well over half a million. Despite his celebrity status, however, Packer has been indefatigable in giving himself to people and projects in ways that are invisible to the public. No audience is too small for Packer, and such venues as speaking to teenagers in a living room have been a standard feature of his life. Packer believes that the most important project of his life is a book that does not even carry his name—the English Standard Version of the Bible (for which Packer served as general editor). That verdict comes from a man whose book Knowing God ranks fifth in a list of "books that have shaped evangelicals." Packer has been equally at home in the Anglican world and the nonconformist evangelical world. Among Anglicans, Packer has been an "iconic figure" who embodies the essence of Anglicanism. This is relatively unknown to "free church" evangelicals because Packer has moved with equal ease in both worlds and has been more influential in the nonconformist world (especially the Calvinistic wing). Packer has been a controversialist virtually his entire public life. Packer has said that he has "always wanted peace, and like Richard Baxter I've been involved in trouble, trouble, trouble, all the way." The "trouble" that Packer references is public controversy and attacks on him. In private conversation Packer confided to me that he has been a controversialist by necessity, not by preference. In 1991, Packer wrote an article discussing how he wishes to be remembered, and regarding his lifetime of entering controversy for the sake of truth he said that it is something that needs to be done but tends to be "barren . . . for the soul." Packer has made his mark by being a faithful steward. J. I. Packer has achieved fame and been serviceable to Christ's kingdom through a very simple formula: he has done the task before him and left the outcome to God. To use a metaphor that Voltaire was inspired to place at the end of his book Candide, Packer has cultivated his garden instead of engaging in grand designs. When I spent two days with Packer in the Crossway offices in June of 2014, he repeatedly told me that he has never cultivated a following. How, then, did he make it onto Time magazine's list of 25 most influential evangelicals? His published writings have been the main vehicle for spreading his name and influence. Packer has never held a prestigious academic post and has never filled a high-visibility pulpit on a permanent basis. We can truly say regarding his fame and influence that God did it.

waiting is worth the reward

In my early twenties, I was a newlywed, fresh-faced and full of hope. Matt and I were well traveled. We had seen almost every Baptist encampment in Texas thanks to his itinerant preaching career. (Don’t be jealous.) While there were countless gifts in that season, what marked that time of my life more than anything else was the pain of a dream deferred. I had a burning desire and dream to lead worship and write songs for worship. I was surrounded by gifted men and women doing such, but by God’s grace and design, I enjoyed the ministry only in small doses. I felt stifled. I felt inadequate. There was work to be done on my heart, and the Lord knew it. I just struggled to see it. I wrote the letter below to the woman I was, with the hope that it might be an encouragement to someone who is wrestling with a dream deferred. You aren’t alone. As I wrote this, I found myself encouraged as well. There are still places I desire to see God work, still dreams I would love to see fulfilled. Writing was a needed reminder that he is working even if it isn’t evident to us, and that he is the dream better than any other dream he puts in our hearts. I know it feels like you will always be frustrated — like God has somehow forgotten you or is acting only as your own personal cosmic killjoy. While you’re hitting barrier after barrier pursuing your heart’s dreams and desires, it seems like everyone around you is living their best life now. You are tired of wrestling. You just want something to break your way. But there’s something I want to tell you that you probably don’t want to hear right now. I promise, though, that you will be so glad if you hang on to these words in the years ahead. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4) Broken Dreams, Delayed Desires Yes, this “trial” is nothing compared to what others who worship Jesus are facing. You aren’t being persecuted for your faith; you aren’t destitute. Although you are living in the foreign wilderness of West Texas, you aren’t an exile or refugee. Nonetheless, this trial fits among the “various kinds,” and thus has the potential to do a tremendous work on your heart, if you will let it. On one level, it doesn’t feel like your faith is being tested. You still believe God is able to do anything; he’s just choosing not to do the things you want him to do for you. It feels like punishment. It feels unfair and confusing. You didn’t ask for these desires, but here they are. There’s nothing wrong or sinful about them. So what are you to do with them? In your mind, you assume there are two choices: either he gives you what you want the way you want it, or he takes the desires away. Beloved, there is so much more. Here’s what he’s doing. He is burning away the fluff. He is pulling out every false prop on which you’ve built your trust. He is frustrating your plans so that you turn your eyes from those around you and the lack you find inside you to see and love him for who he is and not merely what he can do for you. There is no more vital work than that. He loves you too much to give you what you want too soon. I know that’s easy for me to say when I know how this will all play out — when I know that you will be relieved that you didn’t get what you thought you wanted in the way you wanted it. The pressing and breaking of steadfastness doing its work is worth it. Portraits of Steadfastness So what does steadfastness look like? It looks like Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord (Genesis 32:24–32). He didn’t run away. He endured. He grappled with God even when it gave him a limp. He held on for dear life — for a blessing. He didn’t give up, and neither did God. Steadfastness looks like Job. He suffered horribly. He cried out desperately. He even lamented the day of his birth (Job 3:3). He questioned the Lord’s ways and was confronted with the terrifying beauty of God’s holiness. But he didn’t turn away. He was humbled in God’s presence. He laid his hand on his mouth and opened his ears to what God had to say. He rightly saw his scrawny, limited self in light of the magnificence of God. He repented. He prayed for his friends who just didn’t get what he was going through. God rebuked them, but he didn’t rebuke Job in the same way. He corrected and challenged him and eventually blessed him. Steadfastness looks like Hannah. All she wanted was a baby, but all she had was the love of her husband. She wept. She didn’t eat. Her heart was broken into pieces (1 Samuel 1:6–7). But she still went, year by year, with her husband to worship and sacrifice to the Lord in Shiloh. She poured her heart out to the Lord in her distress and through bitter tears. She didn’t hold back. She came honestly, though reverently, knowing that the Lord was the only one who could do something about her pain. And the Lord heard her prayer. He opened her womb and gave her a son that she gave back to him in return (1 Samuel 1:19–20). Perfect and Complete Do you remember when Jesus told his disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12)? The same is true of me to you; some things you learn only by growing older. But I will say this: Steadfastness looks like you falling forward into God’s grace — wrestling hard, crying out, and bringing the broken pieces of your heart to the Lord. It’s you looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, who was perfectly steadfast through the most excruciating trial (Hebrews 12:2). He endured. He cried out. He became broken on your behalf so that his steadfastness could be your steadfastness. So when you’re in the midst of the hard work of steadfastness, remember that it won’t be pretty. And although you are being made “perfect and complete,” it’s not going to look perfect or feel complete. But who you are becoming is better than anything you now imagine — better than any desire or dream fulfilled before its time. You are becoming slowly but surely like Jesus. Be patient with yourself. You will need to read this letter again. And again and again. The process of becoming more steadfast won’t stop until you see your true heart’s desire face to face.