nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

commitments, better self-concept, greater job productivity and satisfaction, flexibility,
innovation, and leadership ability” (p. 117).
Pruning/transplanting: Individual care for optimal growth
Pruning and transplanting are performed by a gardener to help make plants stronger,
more useful, and beautiful to fulfil the purpose of the garden. The processes may
cause a certain level of distress, but plants can be fortified by the process.
Having the great desire to increase their love of others, directors indicated they would
serve anywhere they were asked. This meant that no matter where they were asked to
go participants were willing to serve, seeing a new challenge in a context of greater
personal purpose. All three directors indicated a ready desire to go wherever they
were called, even though this was not always an easy route and often involved
“pulling up roots” and going somewhere else they believed they were needed. One
director was called from Samoa after serving there eighteen years in the CES, part of
that time as a Country Director to come to Aotearoa/New Zealand. Another was
called as Country Director for Aotearoa/New Zealand after serving in various other
CES positions. A third director had come from a finance background to being a CES
director. All of these positions required showing great faith in their lives.
From variant perspectives it may seem that through occasionally accepting
assignments rather than pursuing them, the element of freedom and autonomy were
lessened. Yet all three of the directors indicated they were happy with their
assignments, and were putting in their best wherever they were then called to serve.
Freire (1970), in his “Pedagogy of the oppressed” claims that without freedom, human
beings cannot be complete. Freire contends that freedom is equated with risk-taking,
even repeatedly putting one’s life on the line to avoid the status-quo, to progress and
to be an active participant in progression. He claims that most are afraid of freedom
because it requires stepping out, becoming what he terms “fully human”. Through
accepting assignments from the CES, directors showed that they were willing to step
out of their comfort zones, and to be active participants wherever they were assigned
to serve. Rather than acting as a lessening of freedom, new assignments were seen as
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