Leading With Leaders, Serving With Servants – Zachary Bekken

“It’s difficult”, “it’s rough”, “it’s tiring”, all of these remarks were somewhat common when asking former fellows what their year was like. Often times, we can look past these statements when we are reassured by the follow-up messages of “but it’s worth it” or “yet you grow so much”, and in doing this we might miss the grand picture of God’s work.

In my four years at Alabama, I was blessed to work with various campus ministries and organizations and so I became accustomed to the idea of tiring work with little sleep that returned insignificant amounts of gratitude.  However, receiving thanks was never the point. The point was putting the abilities God had given me to the best use possible for Him. Where this year has expounded even more so upon it, is this idea of [who we do it with]. While it might be “easy” to be a chairman in an organization and make decisions that are not questioned, it is a beautiful challenge to go through processes with ten strong, intelligent, and passionate men and women all in pursuit of the best answers together all with Christ at the center.

We must pursue knowing each other’s hearts, we must pursue loving each other’s minds, and we must pursue actions that point each other to Christ. This, I found, is the beautiful challenge. We, as Fellows, are surrounded by witnesses in this great place called Sky Ranch, and our only recourse is to lay aside every weight and sin which entangles us. Every selfish desire, every inner complaint, and every impatient thought: we throw all of these away to run this race of a year with the brothers and sisters to the left and right. That is what servants do, and those servants are the ones who know how to lead. It’s not about getting to the finish line first—being the best member in your organization. Instead, we focus on this year of the fellowship as the race that is set before us, and we run it well with the men and women that God has set in the program this year. What a fantastic picture of a challenging year that pushes each of us in a great race.