wfn.org | Servant leadership idea right at home in Methodist tradition

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TITLE:Servant leadership idea right at home in Methodist tradition

June 26, 2001 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.     10-71B{291}

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 Scholarship
and Loans 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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United Methodist News Service
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