How Can I Be a Workplace Servant But Not a Doormat? by DANIEL JOONYONG LEE for The Gospel Coalition
The Christlike servant attitude to which I’m called in all of life can make me feel, in the workplace, more like a doormat than a human. How do I balance getting paid an appropriate wage with being a generous giver of my talents and time?
We often assume servants are pushovers because we’ve taken the image of a servant from our culturally shaped imaginations and imported it wholesale into our vision of what it means to follow Christ. One of the best correctives is to remember that Christ does not simply call his followers to be “servants” in abstraction—he calls us to be servant leaders. And this makes all the difference.
Perhaps the most famous passage on Christ’s call to servanthood is Mark 10:42–45. There Jesus instructs his disciples that “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.”
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The context of this passage is James and John’s request to sit at Jesus’s right and left when he is in glory. Jesus responds by discussing the leadership models of the Gentile nations—their tendency to “lord it over” their people and “exercise authority over them.” The Gentiles used their power to impose their will on others. We see this tendency in the winner-take-all mentality so prevalent in our society today, especially in many corporate workplaces.
In contrast, Jesus said whoever would be “great”—whoever wants to rule or to lead—must be a servant. Even the greatest leader of all “came not to be served but to serve.”
But what does that look like to follow Christ’s example?
Passive Submission vs. Proactive Activity
We imagine a servant as someone who puts the needs and desires of others first. But we also imagine they do so passively, not speaking up or taking action unless they’re told what to do. Others make decisions for them, which they carry out. There’s no creativity, no joy, no passion, no initiative—none of the decision-making that makes work joyful.
