nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

viewed as a key element in the production of true servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1996b).
A parent may nurture a child to adulthood. Nurseries, using the same Latin root as
nurture, provide environments to strengthen young and tender plants. It is in nurturing
that bonds of relationship are created and chances for future constructive productivity
increased.
In this thesis service is viewed as an essential element of effective nurturing.
Although it represents definite connections to humanity and human growth, nurturing
as a concept in servant leadership literature has been little explored (Boaz, 2001). For
its importance in human endeavour Dyck (1994) has defined “nurture as an
individual, parental, and communal responsibility. Nurture is a demand of justice; a
responsibility justly expected and justly claimed, and hence, a moral right” (p. 333).
Literature on nurturing has indicated that the need for nurturing may not necessarily
end with childhood, but may continue throughout the lifecycle, as people increasingly
take upon themselves the dual nature of nurturer and nurtured. Fogel, Melson, &
Mistry (1986) argued that “individuals can nurture other individuals of any age” and
suggest that limiting our vision of the effects of nurturance closes our minds to the
possibilities of helping others in highly affective ways (p. 56).
The garden: Central metaphor of this thesis
When the practice of servant-leadership was considered through the lens of nurturing,
multitudinous elements presented themselves as necessary for creating an optimal
environment in which servant leadership can flourish. My positive experiences as a
student in the CES, for instance, I substantially credit to the work of countless others.
The further this theme was considered, the more appropriate it seemed to use a central
metaphor to assist in the processing and envisioning of this project. I hope that by
using a central metaphor, the richness of the analysis and overall purposes of the
project, to be laid out forthwith, will be enhanced.
The garden will play a central role in this thesis for reasons personal, thematic, and
relational. The garden is chosen as the central metaphor because it necessarily
assumes a level of deliberate organisation, of internal potential, as well as the need for
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