Thomas Swaroop, Child Advocacy Director for South Asia, shares about the inspiration he received from a young girl who has an opportunity to shine for Jesus.

Hello. My name is Ally Patton. I’m a Las Vegas native currently attending the University of Nevada, Reno.

This past summer, I interned at Compassion in the Global Ministry Center. There, I worked to establish the Delivery Community* as well as to formulate a detailed road map for upcoming project management training intended to further equip and empower Compassion staff.

When I started my internship, President and CEO Wess Stafford offered a revolutionary idea during my first day of staff orientation. He held up his hands and used his thumbs and index fingers to form a triangle. This top-down pyramid is the traditional model of leadership.

Yes, I’d heard this before. This is how the working world functions — the base supports the top, and the top, due to its position, makes the final call on all projects, decisions, etc.

But then Wess moved his hands, flipping that triangle upside down and said this is how leadership is supposed to look.

I gawked as Wess explained he may be in a position of leadership, but that didn’t mean he was at the top of the triangle.

Instead, he calmly clarified that because of his position in leadership, he was the bottom point of the triangle. As a leader, it is his responsibility to serve and support the rest of the organization — the staff, the global partners and, most important, the sponsored children.

That day I squirmed in my chair, confused by this role reversal. This is not how business functions. This is not how projects are executed. This is not how the world works.

But while this is not how the world works, this is how the kingdom of God is meant to be.

Philippians 2:3-8 adds value to this worldview and the concept of servant leadership. In the New International Version (yes, I prefer this version over ESV) this reads:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!”

When I arrived at Compassion, I came as a culturally aware college student from a secular university. I saw these verses in Philippians as vital to following Christ. Yes, implement them at home, with friends, at church and in the streets. But in my occupation?

Surely, this didn’t have a place in the power plays of the business world. (more…)

The Leadership Academy in Guatemala was implemented in 2005 for the first time to prepare students to enter the Leadership Development Program (LDP) and find good candidates for the program.

Maria, the former LDP Specialist in Guatemala who is now the LDP Specialist for the Central America and Caribbean region, says,

“We believe God wants students to be successful, and it is our goal, through the Leadership Academy, to help students rest on this promise and help them to be more prepared and confident as they start walking on the path God has for them at the university. (more…)

Last week, I was able to attend the Willow Creek Association Leadership Summit at a satellite location here in Colorado Springs. It was so encouraging to hear many of the speakers talk about the need to lead people toward answering the Biblical mandate to speak up for and care for those in need.

Something Wendy Kopp said at the Summit struck me about how we approach leading others toward caring for those in need.

Wendy Kopp is the founder and CEO of Teach for America, a non-profit that asks college graduates to commit to two years of teaching in under-resourced schools.

She was asked how she approaches asking these graduates — some of who could otherwise accept six-figure jobs — to sacrifice so much, putting aside wealth and “success” to teach in schools many would avoid. She said (and this is paraphrased, as my little hand could only scribble so fast as she answered):

You’re giving people an opportunity to be part of something larger, and of significance — people want that … are we afraid to ask people to sacrifice and set a high bar? Your own personal conviction about the work makes it easy to ask others to sacrifice because you’re giving them a gift that will change their lives.

When we tell others about the opportunities to care for those in need, we might feel like we’re putting a burden on them, but far from burdening them, we’re giving them a gift. We’re giving them the opportunity to enter into another aspect of our relationship with Jesus as we follow him.

Several times when talking with someone who has come across the book I wrote about responding to poverty, they say they’re scared to read it. So many are scared of this issue of poverty, and understandably so — it’s big and hairy and complicated. And God might ask us to do scary things.

But I think there’s a third reason people are afraid of poverty — they’re worried a big, fat load of guilt is going to be placed on their shoulders. We’ve been bombarded by so much guilt when it comes to poverty, seeing so many images that evoke guilt and being told “shame on you for drinking that Starbucks instead of caring for a baby.”

Are we guilty for not responding to God’s mandate to care for those in need? Yes, but God hasn’t appointed us as judges of others. He has appointed us as messengers of his grace. And I think when we do approach others not with guilt but with grace, they grasp that helping those in need isn’t about checking off a requirement on our good-Christian to-do list so that we can not feel so guilty. It’s about our relationship with Christ — about following him, obeying him, and knowing him all the more as we become like him in our service to others.

“He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 22:16, NIV, emphasis added)