Servant Leadership

Matthew 20:27 “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.” When I had my first orientation session with the Young President’s Organization, I was surprised to hear the chapter chair espousing servant leadership as a core value of YPO globally. “Isn’t servant leadership a Christian value?” I thought to myself. I had never heard of it outside of a church context. In “Who is This Man?” John Ortberg says it this way. “Humility, which was scorned in the ancient world, became enshrined in a cross and was eventually championed as a virtue.” The playbook for power had everything to do with force and dominance before Jesus’ time, but came and showed a different way. Now even in what is widely known as the premier leadership organization in the world… an organization that is very much a secular organization, we can still see the fingerprints of this man. Lord I love you and I thank you for showing the way. Power does not come from flaunting authority, but from demonstrating humility. I humble myself as I lift you up today. Help me to be more kind and loving to those around me. In your son’s name, Amen.

SPAC Jesus

Matthew 17:5 “This is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” “Normally when someone dies, their impact on the world immediately begins to recede. As I write this, our world marks the passing of digital innovator Steve Jobs. Someone wrote that ten years ago our world had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs; now we have no Jobs, no Cash, and no Hope. But Jesus inverted this normal human trajectory, as he did so many others. Jesus’ impact was greater a hundred years after his death than during his life; it was greater still after five hundred years; after a thousand years his legacy laid the foundation for much of Europe; after two thousand years he has more followers in more places than ever.”

- John Ortberg, “Who Is This Man?”

One trend that’s taken the tech and finance world by storm has been the rise of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs for short). We’ve spent quite some time thinking about SPACs and their impact on our portfolio. This morning it came to mind that Chamath Palihapitaya has often been referred to as SPAC Jesus. (Chamath kicked off this recent SPAC craze with the merger of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in 2018.) I found this one tweet from Muddy Waters Research amusing. In poking Chamath for what companies might be next in his pipeline they wrote “I often ask myself ‘WSWJD?’ (What SPAC would Jesus do?)” As far as I know, Chamath is not a believer, and I’m not sure if anyone at Muddy Waters is a believer, but that’s not expected because the impact of this man named Jesus Christ just grows and grows and grows with time. Folks who don’t have a personal relationship with this man still know who he is, and can rattle off sayings that his followers print on their bumper stickers. So when Peter puts Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah in Matthew 17, God the Father has to step in and come correct. Those two were great men, but they were men. On the other hand, The King of Kings… The Lord of Lords… The Name above All Names… He is the son of God himself. And his name is Jesus. Lord I thank you for giving me relationship with you. Your impact continues to resound throughout the universe, yet you care enough to come and die on the cross for me. How blessed am I. Amen.

Tony Robbins

Matthew 14:17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” My mom once said to me that she noticed an interesting pattern across the many churches she had visited in her lifetime. “Broadly speaking, there are some that interpret the bible very literally, and some that interpret the bible a bit more figuratively. What’s very clear is that those churches who hold a literal interpretation clearly see more signs and wonders in their midst than other churches.” In my worldview, what you believe is a choice whether you realize that or not. If we have a choice to believe something that leads to more miracles, why would we not choose that framework? Even modern day self-help gurus like Tony Robbins understand the power of thinking big. So if it makes sense to believe in the power of attracting abundance, doesn’t it make all the more sense to believe in the power feed 5000, to walk on water and to raise the dead? Lord I choose to believe in you today. I invite you to challenge me. I want to think bigger, to have more faith, and to see more miracles in the lives of those around me. In your son’s name, Amen.