We have all had to accommodate change this year – not just big changes, but constant changes that have been unpredictable. The changes have also taken their toll as we feel the weariness of having to keep working out how to make new decisions in an unfamiliar landscape. In times of change it’s easy to either hold on tighter to old ways of doing things, or just give up. However, during COVID-19 we are working hard to help students be leaders who are servant hearted during this period. So what have we tried?
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To remind students to be God absorbed and not self absorbed. To choose to be servant hearted means reminding each other that God and His Kingdom means more than anything else – including our own personal comfort, safety, and stability. If we take our eyes off this truth, then our world and concerns grow big, and our desire to serve Jesus becomes very small.
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Communicate using your voice. Everyone misses connection. We have encouraged student leaders to be servant hearted by regularly speaking to others in their faculty, comforting them, sharing good news stories of what God is doing, reading the Bible with them, pointing them to the gospel and praying for them. Here is what one first year wrote about their experience “Everyone was super happy and welcoming to the idea of me joining in the first semester but I was not very responsive because of some emergencies but you still reached out to me this semester to join again and that makes me feel extremely welcome to start again. Thank you”. Being servant hearted means good people-work matters.
During times like these, we have the opportunity to refocus what it means to lead with a servant heart. It challenges us to re-evaluate what truly comes first and to invest in the things that really matter.
Celia Toose
Senior Staff worker