DESCRIPTION
There exists a deep tension between the biblical view of servant leaders and the status that Christian leaders today often desire and pursue. Many pastors and other church leaders, like it or not, struggle with ambition. In this book Craig Hill shows how the New Testament can help Christian leaders deal with this problem honestly and faithfully.
Hill examines such passages as the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2 to show how New Testament authors helped early Christians construct their identity in ways that overturned conventional status structures and hierarchies. Status and ambition, Hill says, are not often addressed forthrightly in the church, as Christians either secretly indulge those impulses or feebly try to quash them. Hill's
Servant of All will help Christian leaders reconcile their human aspirations and their spirituality, empowering them to minister with integrity.
REVIEWS
Richard B. Hays
"In the midst of our culture's wistful and slightly desperate clamoring for programs to create 'strong leadership,' Craig Hill's Servant of All speaks a much-needed, biblically grounded word, calling us to recognize 'the way of Jesus' as the true model for leadership in the church. All of us who are caught up in institutions that foster competition, ambition, and self-assertion will find this study to be a bracing, challenging reminder of the true nature of our vocation, and of the character of the One who calls us."
Elaine Heath
"In this welcome volume Craig Hill invites readers—let's make that leaders—to an honest discussion about the problem of unchecked ambition and status-seeking in the church. Framing his discussion with New Testament narratives and the teaching of Jesus, Hill draws from a wide array of sources to help leaders in the church and theological education to choose the way of Jesus. Thoroughly built on scholarly research, this book is readable and edifying for a lay audience as well as clergy and theologians."
William H. Willimon
—from the foreword
"A fast-paced, revealing, scholarly-without-being-showy, and pointedly practical book on status and ambition. . . . Servant of All will elevate Craig Hill's status as one of our premier New Testament scholars who writes in service to the church and its leaders."
Currents in Theology and Mission
"Servant of All is a timely word for church leaders who want a biblical vision of leadership amid cultural forces that encourage competition, ambition, and self-promotion. In a world that worships the strong, dynamic, charming, and charismatic, Hill’s book reminds followers of Jesus that we are called to a radically countercultural view of significance and status."