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From Luke’s Journal February 2024 | Vol.29 No.1 | Missions and Sacrificial Service

A doctor friend told me the problem of trying to stand out as a Christian in the health field. “Normally, being a Christian might make a difference in other vocations,” she said. It is true that in my writing and speaking, my examples of Christians in the finance or mining industries focus on how distinct they are to their peers. “However, we are working amongst colleagues who see their work as a vocation, who are usually highly motivated and filled with purpose to heal and care. How will they see Jesus in us?”

This comment was in the back of my mind as I interviewed ten experienced doctors about how they successfully lived out their faith at work for a new book I have been working on for a couple of years.

I gave the interviewees a list of skills that Christians should learn to help them “workship”, that is, worship God through their work. The list included items such as “demonstrate excellent competency for the job”, and “exegete the Bible with application in work context”, and “theologically reflect on current issues and situations”.

However, the skills that they chose were:

• Influence others through servant leadership.
• Transform working, working relationships, the workplace or work recipients through gospel renewal.

While my friend had focused on the character of Jesus, these doctors were focusing on the behaviour of Jesus as the means by which they might live out their faith in the workplace.

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In this article, I want to explore their responses on influencing through servant leadership. Why is it important? They told me that servant leadership creates an opportunity to make a real difference as a leader.

As one doctor said, “There are still many leaders who call the shots, and lead in a very autocratic manner, who don’t bring their teams along with them, and are still very patriarchal in their leadership models. You can really show a difference by being a servant leader.”

I asked these doctors to give me examples of when Christian doctors do NOT demonstrate this skill, and the impact.

The doctor who is on a pedestal

“He lords it over others, and puts himself on a pedestal. His office door was always closed, he was never available. He considered what he was doing as always more important than the person standing in front of him.”

The doctor who puts their own reputation above doing the work

“He coordinates research and always says ‘Yes’ to others, but then is unable to provide the appropriate supervision. He does not get engaged in the work, and does not give himself fully to others. He is more focused on the kudos of taking on more research students rather than serving others.”

It is obvious from these examples, that sadly these doctors have been absorbed into the temptations of the  ego-driven culture around them.

Much more inspiring were the stories about those Christian doctors who DID demonstrate servant leadership.

The doctor who defended those who were bullied

“When there was a time of severe bullying, this doctor stepped in when he didn’t have to. He spoke up for justice and defended those who had resigned. For this he was attacked by management; however, the story of what he had done spread through all the hospitals in Melbourne.”

The GP who treats everyone the same

“She runs a medical practice and has three secretaries who work with her, as well as other doctors. She treats her administrators not as employees, and her tenants not as tenants, but as fellow team workers. She is well-connected and smart, and she chooses to display care for her employees.”

The head of a medical unit who cleaned up vomit

“He is the head of a medical unit and once he messaged staff that the office had been broken into and entirely trashed by a group of young people, with mess that included quantities of urine and vomit. He drove in on a weekend and helped clean the office. He got down on his hands and knees and cleaned up the mess, showing the staff that he was prepared not just to give the orders, but to do the dirty work.”

What strikes me about these examples is that they involve sacrifice: sacrifice of time, of reputation, of status, and of comfort.

In these ways they are exemplifying Jesus, as Eugene Peterson paraphrases the early Christian hymn recorded in Philippians 2:5–8:

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.“

In these ways, Jesus was honouring God and serving others, that is, worshipping God through his work.

I suspect that sacrificial service, with a heart focused on Jesus, will always stand out in any workplace. However, I will add a final thought, from my own experience.

Such sacrificial service sometimes results in extreme weariness—and even burnout. This was the way I was headed toward the end of last year, when someone led me through a reflection on Ephesians 6:10.

The first two words are: “Be strong!” Mentally, I girded myself, “I can do this,” I thought, “I can be strong” even though outwardly I was feeling so wasted.

I had completely missed the next three words “in the Lord”. When we serve, when we sacrifice, we must do it in the Lord, not in our own strength, or we will wear out.

However, there were five more words to give me comfort and energy to serve: “and in his mighty power.” Jesus wants to give us His power, His strength. It is not a matter of how much strength I have to serve, but how much I am prepared to be a channel of Jesus’ strength and power.

In this way, we can truly influence through servant leadership, following Jesus’ example through His mighty power.

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