Servant. Servant spirit. Servant of Christ. Service Organization. Called to serve. Serving customers (churches). Jesus came not to be served but to serve others. Servant leadership.
“Serve” is likely a very familiar term to you. It likely reflects what you do particularly if you serve in a Christian organization. You serve Christ. You serve a church or churches. You serve customers or constituents. Service involves meeting the needs of someone else. Members of outstanding organizations take it just a notch further. John G. Miller puts it this way. “Real service is simply doing for others that which we don’t have to do.” Think about it for a moment. Real service is not the fulfilling of your responsibilities, your job assignment, or your obvious duties. Real service occurs when you go out of your way to serve someone even though you don’t have to do it.
It can be as simple as picking up a piece of trash as you walk through the garage. It could be cleaning up a spill. It could be escorting someone to meet another staff member in your facility. It could be voluntarily staying ten extra minutes to assist a co-worker. It could be setting aside your responsibilities for an hour and going to a neighboring office or another floor to help a ministry getting ready for an event in a crunch. It is taking a few minutes to interact with a staff member from another ministry area to encourage them. It happens when you pause and express appreciation for someone even when they have not necessarily done anything specific for you. The possibilities are really endless. Thanks for doing your job and thanks for those times you serve by doing things that are not even part of your job. That is what members of outstanding organizations do!
Adapted from Chapter Twenty-Four of John G. Miller’s: Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional