"Do those served grow as persons, do they while being served become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous (self-reliant), more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?"

YET I WILL PRAISE Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow. Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I'm only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him. Gradually Sangster's legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, 'He is risen!'--but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout." CITATION: Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no. KEYWORDS: Afflictions; Adversity; Perception and reality; Optimism; Easter; Resurrection; Ministry; Health; Perseverance; Praise; Tenacity; Zeal; Eternal Perspective; Perspective SCRIPTURE: Psalms 63:4; Habakkuk 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 1 Peter 1:6-7

The first task of a leader is to help define reality. The last is to say ‘thank you.’ In between, the leader is a servant. -- Max DePree

George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community in Scotland, often took the job of cleaning the community's latrines so that he would 'not be tempted to preach irrelevant sermons on the dignity of labor.' By: Wm. Willimon Source: Jobs and Callings: A Theology of Work in The Christian Ministry magazine, May/June 1997, pg. 15

Martin Luther on work in the mid-1500s, said, “...[household work] has no appearance of sanctity; and yet these very works in connection with the household are more desirable than all the works of the monks and nuns.... Seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God.” By: Martin Luther Source: in commentary on Gen. 3:15 as cited by Forrester