Servant Ministry

The Servant's identity
1 Behold my servant
2 Emptied and humbled
3 Chosen and loved
4 Servants one and all

The Servant's calling
5 The Spirit upon him
6 Justice, the suffering servant and the law of God
7 Justice, the compassionate servant and the needs of the world

The Servant's character
8 The servant as leader
9 Humility, and the danger of pride
10 Gentleness, and the temptations of power
11 Faithfulness, and the challenge of pain

The Servant's confidence
12 The God who speaks
13 God's presence to reassure
14 God's protection to guard
15 God's purpose to guide

The Servant's attentiveness
16 Listening and Responding

In September 2010 Tony Horsfall came and led a staff retreat at Redcliffe College, ahead of the start of the academic year . The retreat was called 'Time to Stop' but it took place about five days before the students started arriving - we didn't really have time to stop! But his focus on our identity and purpose, and his unpacking of the resources available to us, allowed us both individually and corporately to remember during that particularly challenging year, to stop, reflect and reengage afresh in God's service.

This is a book on servanthood that presents a truly biblical view of servanthood - not like being some kind of nice, benign auntie for whom nothing is too much trouble, but rather as a call to live as God intends us to live. I teach a postgraduate class on leadership and I sometimes tell the students that I get fed up with talk of servant leadership, partly because I see many other metaphors for leadership in scripture but also because I think Christians have misunderstood servant leadership and servanthood generally! Tony, however, has not..

God intends us to live and serve secure. Tony starts with identity and calling. This is vital: we need to know who we are: both the reality of frailty and our status as children of the living God loved by a Father who delights in his children. He goes onto justice and compassion - two concepts that often get separated by Christian writers because they find them hard to hold in tension. Tony, however, does not...

God intends us to live confidently. Servants serve a master (in our case the Lord), not every person we bump into. Knowing how God wants us to serve him in each and every situation we find ourselves - whether it demands compassion or righteous anger, clear leadership or wise counsel - is vital to effective Christian living. To be able to do it in confidence because we know who we are and who we are called to be, allows us to serve effectively.Tony has served the church so well in the writing of this book. It has the potential to make the church a better bride of Christ and each individual Christian a closer reflection of Jesus this side of heaven.