52 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY forerunner of the Messiah: “He must increase; I must decrease.” This kind of leader yearns not for a place in history or a visible monument to one’s accomplishments, but for the divine benediction on a stewardship fulfilled: “well done, good and faithful servant.”14 A good example of this type of spiritual leadership in crises can be found in the figure of Moses. Faced with unrelenting odds and dire consequences around seemingly every bend, Moses was nonetheless focused on “leading people on to God’s agenda,” in the words of Blackaby and Blackaby.15 Though he and his people faced a Pharaoh who was unrelenting in his malice, massive logistical problems in coordinating the exodus of an entire nation of people, and the threat of hunger and thirst at every turn, Moses was nonetheless a leader who continued to serve God and serve His people. He was consistently described in Scripture as the “servant of the Lord” a total of 36 times and exhibited a God-centric form of leadership throughout his ministry. This meant that he had the important task of constantly pointing the people back to God’s agenda rather than their own. Where they wanted the comforts of their “home” in Egypt, God’s plan was to reshape their hearts and make them into a nation that would be a blessing to all other nations. Such a radical vision was not necessarily what the people wanted at first, and it was Moses’ job to continually point them back to God, His promises, and His plan for them. While Moses’ primary job during this crisis was to point people back to God’s agenda, a key secondary part of his servant leadership was to help the people cope with the crisis and recover from each situation they faced. His biblical servant leadership was multi-faceted, as he had a wide variety of tasks to help provide for the people and enable them to concentrate on God’s agenda. He had to constantly be looking out for their basic needs, including food, water, and shelter. He had to listen to God and develop a system of laws and governance that would produce peace among the people. Likewise, he had to develop leaders who could face the challenges that faced not only him, but the entire people. As the people moved from crisis to crisis, he was ever vigilant, always serving as an advocate for the people before the Lord. By leading with service in mind, he was able not only to point the people on to God’s
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