7 Biblical Requirements of Servant Leaders
As we grow and mature in wisdom, we learn every step leads away from self and toward Christ. More of him, less of us! The seven biblical “requirements” below are intended to help you take your own next steps.
We Need New Leaders!
Earlier this year I was asked to contribute an article to the Lausanne Movement as they prepare for their global congress in South Korea later this year. It was a privilege to have my article published in July. The Lausanne Movement has been at the cutting edge of global missions since the 1970s. Their website […]
Leadership Insights from Jossy Chacko’s Book: Madness
Grab a Towel servant leadership lessons from Jossy Chacko’s book, Madness.
The Force of Focus (part 2): Five practical ways we can maintain a narrow focus
Force of focus (part 2), five practical ways we can maintain a narrow focus and keep the main thing, the main thing.
Leading and Grieving
Other than at funerals, how many sermons do we hear on death? Surely, as leaders, we need to be more proactive. Death is part of life which means it’s part of our discipleship. Therefore, we need to talk about death!
The Force of Focus (part 1)
Leaders face multiple distractions. In a complex and busy world, focus is a powerful force.
Effortless Part 4: Struggle and Security
One of the greatest temptations a leader faces is to live for the applause of people. We long for recognition and seek affirmation. Leadership can easily descend into a popularity contest. This often comes at the expense of truly leading. Perhaps this is a contributing factor to the epidemic of leadership bankruptcy seen in the world today.
Effortless Part 3: Strive and Surrender
Surrendering is not normally an image associated with leadership. Surrender is usually seen as a sign of defeat. Modern leadership gurus are reluctant to speak about defeat. This would be seen as a weakness. However, within the effortless paradigm of leadership, we see that surrendering is the key that unlocks true spiritual strength.
Effortless Part 2: Working While Waiting
For so many leaders, our identity is wrapped up in our work and activity. We find our value and sense of worth in the work of leadership.
Effortless leadership, on the other hand, starts from the position of obeying the biblical instruction to wait on God
Effortless: Leading with Exponential Impact
This is the first in a series of four articles.
Defining the effortless paradigm as a key to leading with exponential impact.
Servanthood as a Foundation for Discipleship
In this interview on House of Testimony, Tim unpacks the nature of servanthood and how it is a critical and counter-cultural element of Christian discipleship.
Working while Waiting: Leadership Gems from Andrew Murray
Waiting and working might seem contradictory, but Andrew Murray shows how they must be held in balance as a Christian leader.
Grab a Towel 2nd Edition
Introducing the paperback version of the 2nd edition of Grab a Towel. Available only on Amazon.
Serving Young People: 3 Principles for Youth Development
It seems that every generation of young people needs to find themselves and their place in society. The challenge is, how do we create an environment for young people to discover their place in society without them falling prey to desperation and negative life choices?
This article proposes three principles for youth development.
Lead with Compassion (4/4 interviews on CCFM)
This is the final episode from the Grab a Towel vault. Late in 2020, Shaun Leigh conducted four interviews with me about the various topics covered in Grab a Towel. These were aired on CCFM. This is the fourth interview of four. If you have not read Grab a Towel, then click here to find out […]
Become Deep Wells (3/4 interviews on CCFM)
This is from the Grab a Towel vault. Late in 2020, Shaun Leigh conducted four interviews with me about the various topics covered in Grab a Towel.
Give Power Away (2/4 interviews on CCFM)
This is from the Grab a Towel vault. Late in 2020, Shaun Leigh conducted four interviews with me about the various topics covered in Grab a Towel.
Put People First (1/4 interviews on CCFM)
Tim Tucker is interviewed on CCFM. This is the first episode – Put People First.
Hot off the press: Grab a Towel – 2nd Edition
We are excited to launch the second edition of Grab a Towel: Christ-centred servant leadership for the 21st century.
Top Ten Tips for Non-Profit CEOs
Having handed over the reigns of The Message SA to Shaun Pretorius, these are my top 10 tips for Non-Profit CEOs.
Do you not perceive it?
“I wanted to change their perception of what is possible”. Siya Kolisi
Perception is powerful! In particular, as Christian leaders, how we perceive what God is doing in the world will critically shape our approach to life and ministry.
Thread of grace
It was 1944. The Germans were losing the battle on the Russian front. My grandfather (Opa in German) was a recent recruit to the front… but his physical war didn’t last long. Within a few months, he had been captured and taken as a prisoner of war. Now a new battle began…
Are you listening?
Communication is a massive challenge for leaders. Always has been, always will be. One of the biggest issues many of us face is truly listening to people rather than simply waiting for a long enough pause for us to be able to spew out our opinions (and if a pause doesn’t come, we just butt in regardless). But something else is causing me concern about how we’re communicating in the technical age.
C – H – A – R – A – C – T – E – R
The premise of my book, Grab a Towel, is that servant leadership provides a Christ-centred critique and corrective to much of the leadership that we see in the 21st Century. This is perhaps most apparent when we look at what I propose is the foundation of servant leadership – character. And given so much of what has been taking place on a global scale in recent times and the dearth of servant leadership on display, I felt it was a good time to post this (summarised) excerpt from the book.
The Grab a Towel mandate: apprenticing to Jesus.
The foreman screamed across the shop floor… “Tucker… what the ******* are you doing – you’ll lose a finger”. I immediately realised how stupid I was being… seeking to clear metal shards from the rotating drill with my hand. My safety report that week was somewhat humiliating. Being an apprentice on the shop floor had its ups and downs. This was definitely a low point! But I believe in the principle of apprenticing – I don’t think there’s anything quite like on-the-job training. And this equally applies to being Jesus’ apprentices…
A life-giving corrective (a review by Rev. David Meldrum)
This book is a life-giving corrective to all this, painting a picture of servant leadership that’s both honest about the difficulties, pain and challenges – but also emotionally truthful about the ups and downs and how we might deal healthily with the suffering that is likely to come our way.
The question of curiosity
It seems to me that part of our expectation of leaders is that they can answer our questions and solve our problems. There is a danger that we want our leaders to be omniscient and fail to recognise that the greatest leaders do not try and be the fount of all knowledge. In fact, I’ve been wondering recently if the power of great leadership rather rests in the ability to ask great questions and to remain curious.
Developing Christ-like Character: lessons from Dallas Willard
My book, Grab a Towel, argues that the number one priority of servant leaders is to increasingly display the character of Christ.
But how do we grow in the character of Christ? This article looks at the writings of Dallas Willard to give us helpful guidance in this essential area.
Grab a Towel online series
My teaching on servant leadership and based upon the book, Grab a Towel, has been incorporated into a nine-part film series airing on Message Live.
Navigating Covid-19
This post reflects on leading The Message Trust through the last 6 months… As we entered 2020, we were full of hope and optimism for the year ahead. Our keyword for the year was expectant… but the one thing we didn’t expect was Covid-19 and the hard lockdown.
Young people grab towels
King Solomon famously wrote: “Train a child in the way he should go, And he will not easily depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). But when it comes to leadership development, it is hard to find programmes that intentionally invest in emerging young leaders…
Servant Leadership Personified
The intriguing story of Ebed-Melech. Against all odds, he risked his own neck to show courageous servant leadership…
The example of Jesus
I gave this message last year at Lighthouse Church in Salford on how we adopt the attitude of Christ. It’s based upon Philippians 2.
Expectant Leadership (lessons from slip-fielders)
I love this quote from George Barna’s book, Master Leaders:
Leadership is motivating, mobilising, resourcing, and directing people to pursue a shared vision that produces positive transformation… Leadership is the identification of noble goals and objectives with such intensity that others are drawn into the process… Leadership is taking people where they are not already going. It is about redefining the possible.
What a great definition of leadership: it is about redefining the possible…
Multiplying Leaders by Jeremy Koeries
In Acts 6:1-7, we read of the disciples multiplying and new leaders being appointed. Multiplication is the end result of a disciple-making process. This process can be seen in the life of an individual disciple or a ministry leader, or even the church! The end result of this process is mature disciples reproducing themselves into other disciples.
A call to servant leadership – by Afrika Mhlophe
When I look at Christian leadership today, I see a situation akin to that of a dog chasing after a car. When the dog catches up with its target, it does not know what to do with the car because its purpose for chasing was not clearly defined. The absurdity of this situation is best explained by a quote from the late Dr Myles Munroe, who said, “when a purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.”
God’s Succession Planning
I recently read the book 4 Chair Discipling by Dann Spader. I was particularly struck by the following illustration (which I’ve quoted at length), which helps us understand the responsibility we have as Christ-centred servant leaders to maintain faithful stewardship (see Grab a Towel chapter 3) of the Gospel which God has entrusted to us.
Why Grab a Towel? an interview with Christian Book Discounters
Christian Book Discounters (CBD) provide trusted resources for the African market. They have been a primary distributor of Grab a Towel since it’s release in 2018. The following interview has been taken from their website and was conducted with Tim Tucker when Grab a Towel was first released in 2018.
The Leaders’ Table
Reading Grab a Towel is not meant to be a purely academic exercise!
Growth in leadership comes through ‘doing life together’– literally, sitting round a table (preferably over a meal or at least a coffee) and engaging deeply, holding one another accountable, and encouraging one another to become more proficient leaders.
Life in the FAST lane
This is a talk I recorded for the Amplify conference on urban missions. It looks at four keys to maintaining transformational leadership for the long haul.
Detoxing my heart
there is an insidious threat to Christian leaders that looks like we’re putting people first, but it is actually the antithesis of servant leadership. Rather than putting people first, we succumb to the disease of being a people -pleaser.
Keep Your Head
There’s a scene in the Matrix where Neo first enters the computer generated world and is learning to live counter to what he has been programmed his whole life. He is with his mentor, Morpheus, and they are walking against the tide of hundreds of people on a city’s streets. Morpheus, overcoming the confines of his mind, is able to walk without bumping into anyone – parting the proverbial Red Sea of people. Neo, on the other hand, bumps into everybody and is unable to avoid all the tide of people in his path.
I believe that the experience of a Christ-centred servant leader is more like Neo’s experience than Morpheus’s.
Grabbing towels in 2018
Looking back on highlights from 2018… grabbing towels and becoming Christ-centred servant leaders.
Superhero or Servant?
Grab a Towel presents a contrast between two types of leadership: the superhero and the servant. I am constantly reminded of the importance of this distinction – whether considering leadership in politics, business or church ministry.
Five gritty decisions that Christ-centred servant leaders will make.
In Grab a Towel I write that Christ-centred servant leaders need to have ‘steel in their spine’ – the gritty resolve to persevere through all the challenges they face. One way that God develops our grit is through tough circumstances and situations which test our character and strengthen our resolve to follow Him through thick and thin…
Raising Servant Leaders
We have launched the Grab a Towel interaction guide – called ‘The hitch-hiker’s guide to servant leadership’ and recently completed our first training series with the staff of The Message.
There is no them… only us
The history of humanity is a litany of devastation and destruction when the ‘us’ rises against ‘them’. Even in leadership speak we have ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’… which risks causing an unnecessary “us” and “them” divide in our organisations, on our teams, and in our churches. Grab a Towel seeks to break down the myth of us and them… recognising that as Christians we are all followers, and we are all leaders – carrying influence in this world. There is no them, it’s only us…
‘That might not be such a stupid idea…’ and other clues to discerning your vision
According to most leadership gurus, we all need to have a vision for our life. I don’t necessarily disagree… but what I’ve come to question is the process we undertake to comprehend the vision and calling that God has for us…
This post documents my personal journey in discovering my calling and vision…
No more Superheroes
The Superhero movie is a film genre that still reliably draws crowds to the cinema. The depiction of a person with superhuman powers, willing to battle for justice against forces of evil, has been a winning formula on screen for over a century. But in recent times I’ve noticed that there has been a significant shift in the way superheroes are portrayed…
Born Followers
Maybe a more critical question for Christian leaders is not ‘are we born leaders’, but, ‘are we effective followers?’ The essential unifying quality of every Christ-centred servant leader is that they are first and foremost a follower…
Taking serving seriously (by Andy Hawthorne)
We live in the age of personal branding and self-promotion… where people are serious about making a name for themselves. How, as Christian leaders, do we avoid the temptation of pride and selfish ambition that can so easily ensnare us?
The following extract is from the book ‘Being the Message’ where Andy Hawthorne (International CEO of The Message Trust) advocates that, in order to avoid the danger of being a people-pleaser, we need to take serving seriously and focus on following the example of Christ…
Why Grab a Towel?
A common question I’ve been asked since releasing Grab a Towel is, ‘why did you write the book?’ Clearly asking why is always a great question before embarking on an enterprise or project… So maybe it will help you to understand why I wrote Grab a Towel and encourage you to not only read the book, but consider how the concepts in the book should not remain words on a page, but motivate you towards action and change.
The hitchhiker’s guide to servant leadership
I was at work preparing for the launch of Grab a Towel… when a colleague came up to me to ask about the origin of the name. “Oh,” she said – rather disappointedly when I told it was from Jesus’ example in John 13, “I thought it also referred to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. I was intrigued…