The last laugh

Last week, the week that all students rush to finish anything they have left, I entered a computer lab to continue work on my final paper for the last of the "GS" classes. GS classes are a notorious set of classes that all students are required. Much of the classes focus on "servant leadership." Anyways, a friend of mine was in the computer lab and, when she saw me, started whining about her computer programming assignment. I jested I would write her program if she were to write my paper. So, she started writing and kept writing for two and a half pages (double spaced). The result is this wonderful piece of satire that I now present here:


Daniel Bergquist (wink wink)
Servant Leadership

Servant leadership sucks, primarily because it is an oxymoron. Nothing is more annoying than an oxymoron that has meaning attached to it. The frankly unbiblical concept was originally created a few years ago at a small Christian college in Nebraska as a sort of catch phrase that could be thrown at prospective students, thus making the college sound more impressive then it really was. Since then, it has grown into a national phenomenon that can be found all over the internet…wait, that’s Chuck Norris facts. Never mind. Actually, it’s essentially a concept that exists solely in the hearts and minds of liberal arts majors who, being unable to get a real job and tired if cleaning the toilets of their Comp Sci counterparts, instead decided to write cute little books that cost an exorbitant price due to the cute colorful pages that try to cover up the misery that lies in their bereft souls. Perhaps if they stuck to reading the Bible and had decided to be sensible in college, they would not be in this predicament.

But alas, they are. They thought that by randomly sticking together meaningful verses of the Bible, they could find something useful for all their lives. (Note that this is the same general approach used in the bestselling A Purpose Driven Life, only with less duct tape involved) These revolutionaries did what every Mormon dreams of: they actually convinced semi-reasonable Christians to accept and believe this queer new doctrine.

The basics of servant leadership are actually quite complex to flesh out, and thus, only the most basic of basic principles will be illustrated here. First of all, as Christians we are called to be servants to a world filled with sin, deprivation, and more than a few fat people. The best way to serve them is by leading. This amazing example was set when Jesus washed his disciples feet, thus showing that a servant can in fact lead the people. This was such an amazing display of servant leadership, that to even question where the leadership comes in is down-right blasphemous. Oh, and there was also that time he turned water into wine, which was sort of pointless but does show that even servant leaders have to party now and again.

The best way to lead people (as a servant of course) is to rule with an iron fist. If you are too lazy or generally not intelligent enough to woo the people to your cause, then it is also acceptable to spend most of your time whining about the war while buying anti-Bush bumper stickers with your father’s credit card. Somewhere along the way you should also try to pay at least seven hundred dollars to teach a VBS class. The really hardcore servant leader will pay an additional two thousand so that they can wash the feet of all those poor children living in Belize, providing that those children spend most of their time underwater.

There is nothing wrong with serving. Unless of course you are lawn-mower man (aka the “Grass Nazi”) in which case you can’t do anything right, no matter how faithfully you maintain the abundant lawns of a small Lutheran Church Missouri Synod college in eastern Nebraska that will remain nameless. Serving isn’t really the cool thing to do, but it’s what God calls us to do. It also gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, unless you live in a predominately Muslim country in which case you will mostly feel a lot of pain right before you die. For the most part, it’s nice. Who doesn’t like to feed smelly homeless people? They’re all pretty nice people, really.

Last time I checked, the last shall be first does not mean that you can be last and first at the same time. That would be rather ridiculous, though I am sure that there is an obscure branch of Physics which devotes a great deal of time analyzing just such a phenomenon. The trouble of servant leadership is that the person deluded enough to believe in doesn’t realize that you can’t have it both ways. I realize that living in such a beautiful country as the United States can deceive people into believing that the world really doesn’t hate us and that we belong in it. But we don’t. We are called to not be of this world. If you really think about it, it’s a bit more than that. We’re called to be completely different than everything that this world deems acceptable. That makes it sort of tough to be a leader, but that’s a good thing. Christ is our leader and sinner though I may be, I am not so arrogant as to think that I have any business trying to take over that job so that I can receive glory and attention before men.