Page 14 - Principles of Leadership - Nehemiah

a cross-cultural servant. In America, everything is expected to start on time and end on time. This standard is
so woven into our culture that we project images of clocks on big screens that count down the number of
minutes until our church services are to start. If you go to places of business, you will find people lining up to
clock in for work. I remember in the first church I pastored, when I preached for over one hour. People came to
me and said, pastor if you can’t strike oil in thirty minutes, you had better sit down. Another person said,
pastor, the mind can only take as much as the bottom can stand. So, in America, we are taught to start on time
and finish on time. Most everything is governed by time and not the event.

Imagine the thoughts that were going through my mind when I was ready to start an afternoon class at 1:00
P.M., and only two students were seated. In my mind, I was questioning just how important the Word of God
was to these students that they would dare be late to my class. The longer I waited for them to arrive, the more
agitated I became. I looked at my clock, looked again, and became more disturbed. Finally, after waiting for
what I thought was an eternity, I asked one of the college leaders where the students were and why they were
late. I was confronted with a cross-cultural conflict. Either I could hold onto my culture or try to understand
African culture. The truths from the book Globalizing Theology were also echoing in my conscience. These
theologians express how anthropologists have discovered that “the study of otherness and their findings have
made it impossible for any literate person to believe that there is only one way of seeing the world… They
qualify this statement by saying that Missiologists need not be fearful of the realization that there are many
ways to see the world. This need not necessarily threaten our faith and turn us into cultural relativists or
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religious universalists.”

I learned that everything revolves around events in Africa, not necessarily time. Yes, time is important, but
events can supersede time. As a servant of God longing to instruct these students, I had to examine my
understanding of servanthood against the scriptures. Remember, a cross-cultural servant must always examine
their cultural actions and beliefs against the scriptures. For example, looking at Acts 20, I found my cultural
beliefs about time coming up short. Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week, we assembled to break bread. Paul
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spoke to them, and since he was about to depart the next day, he extended his message until midnight. There
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were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were assembled, and a young man named Eutychus was
sitting on a windowsill and sank into a deep sleep as Paul spoke. When he was overcome by sleep, he fell from
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the third story and was picked up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him, embraced him, and said, “Don’t be
alarmed, for his life is in him!” After going upstairs, breaking the bread, and eating, Paul conversed for a
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considerable time until dawn. Then he left. They brought the boy home alive and were greatly comforted.
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Wow, to my amazement, I discovered that the event determined the behavior of Paul, and time had no bearing
on his actions. Because the event superseded time, they were able to experience God. Looking closer at the
scriptures, I can see that he generally messed up our time schedules when God was at work. This event forced
me to adjust my beliefs to the local customs and serve my students with Christ-like humility. As we journey
through the book of Nehemiah, you will find this humility in the life of God’s servant, Nehemiah. Again, we
must realize that cross-cultural serving must be sensitive to the cultural landscape while remaining true to the
scripture. Or, to put it another way, the cross-cultural servant and theologian must involve both the scriptural
text and the context. Some will try to exclude one element over the other by asking if our primary loyalty
should be to the text or to the context. Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer would answer by saying, “There is surely
something right in the insight that one need not cease being an African, Asian, or American when one becomes
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a Christian.” Again, the word servant is used forty-five times in this book. So, from this, we can see that
Nehemiah was more concerned with caring for a towel of servanthood than he was with the new title of
governor that had been given to him. We are faced with this question: do we want a towel or a title? Again,
because the scriptures value Servant Leadership, I have devoted Appendix 1 to a more comprehensive
discussion of this leadership style.

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