nurturing servant leaders in religious education - Scholarly ...

Family
The importance of the family was a trend seen throughout the interview and focus
group sessions. The importance of families cannot be overstated in Church doctrine,
and the trend in the findings will be detailed further below. Answers showed that the
CES was seen as a tool to assist families and further stress their importance. Much of
servant leadership understanding stemmed from personal, familial relationships where
foundational teaching and learning take place. Families provided clear examples for
both directors and volunteer teachers of how and where servant leadership should be
practiced, and were frequently drawn upon to help explicate servant leadership
understanding. The importance of families in relation to CES servant leadership is
shown in the following participant quotations,
Every parent, every father and mother is a servant leader. And I think if we can
develop these principles, in the home, that being the core training centre for
servant leaders…then it’s a responsibility that all of us have…CES is a training
resource to help these families, fathers, mothers, individuals, to be, with the added
word, true servant leaders (DC).
part of the Plan is to have children and that. Motherhood and fatherhood, you
know, having children is quite hard, a big responsibility. And so that’s why we
have Church. It’s a resource for us to help these parents teach Heavenly Father’s
children properly, so that they can also do that to their children in the future. And
so, being in the CES, is just, for me, a part of a responsibility (VT8).
The husband and wife relationship was also held by all three directors to be a living
application of servant leadership characteristics and principles. Directors especially
identified in the marital relationship a need, and an end for the type of servant-first
mindset called for in servant leadership. Findings upheld the Church doctrine that the
family is the fundamental unit of society, and a prime experimental ground for
nurturing the human spirit (Intellectual Reserve, 1995).
Definitely a husband/wife relationship. Servant leaders like give and take. The
marriage relationship, I feel, is probably the most difficult relationship, because
there’s very few relationships on earth where you are so intimately involved,
totally. And, while it’s the most difficult, it’s the most, the greatest too as well,
because you really do learn, and need to learn how to serve and lead (DA).
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