by Siang-Yang Tan

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review by Patrick Oden

TO MOST OF THE WORLD the word servant implies someone who does work someone else orders done. Images come to mind of genteel English estates, where women walk around with feather dusters, and men in nice suits open doors and serve the food. “She is a servant” is not a compliment.

In Christian circles servant has become a word without meaning. A servant is what a Christian should be, yet the word has become overused—a compliment often without any bearing on reality. It is a title of honor even for those who have not earned this honor by their attitudes or actions.

In his book Full Service, Dr. Siang-Yang Tan attempts to overcome this rather confusing circumstance by leading us into a discovery of real servanthood. Dr. Tan attacks the subject with a wide-ranging and holistic approach—not surprising given his dual role of professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary and senior pastor of First Evangelical Church in Glendale, California.

Full Service is broken up into five sections. The first section defines the source of our servanthood. Dr. Tan reminds us that being a servant is not about our own efforts but instead it's purely “about living in Jesus and Jesus living in us by the power of the Holy Spirit” (45). This means we have to be oriented toward Christ in all things and see our relationship with him as our primary occupation. We watch him. We listen to him. We reflect him. Then we will serve him.

Only after establishing this orientation does Dr. Tan enter into the second section, which is a more thorough definition of servanthood, beginning with what it is not. It is not servitude. It is not the servant-leadership concept found in the business models in which masters are rhetorically called servants. Finally, servanthood is not service for our own benefit.

Real servanthood means always looking toward Jesus. However, difficulties do arise if we live this orientation. It's these difficulties that Dr. Tan discusses in the third section. Being a servant means having the ability to embrace suffering. It means becoming truly humble. It means letting go at times so we can rest. It also means telling others about Christ and fighting the warfare that spirituality brings our way. All these things emphasize Christ in us, and the Spirit working through us.

From here Dr. Tan gets very practical. He looks at the church, at our households, and then at our places of work or education in order to help us discover what a servant is in each of these vital settings of life and influence.

At the very end, in the last chapter, he turns our gaze heavenward. He has already told us who we serve. He has told us how we serve. Now he tells us why we serve. It is about living for eternity. Being a servant means focusing on Christ with empowerment by the Spirit to live with an eternal mindset. This is what Jesus taught, what all the Scriptures taught. Yet we too often forget. The reminder Dr. Tan gives us is quite needed, especially in our culture of dominance, ambition, and greed.

The broad description and the emphasis on Christ and Spirit makes Full Service a valuable read. Yet the book is not without frustrations. While Dr. Tan is the author, the great majority of the content comes from other sources. One can almost say Dr. Tan uses every available source, as he does a magisterial job of gathering together the top pastors and writers of our era and sharing with us their views on servanthood. Instead of adding to the book this makes it somewhat disjointed and without a rhythm. Dr. Tan doesn't interact with each source. Rather, he starts a topic, then tells us what one person writes, then another person, then another—often including their lists of responses in quick succession. At one point halfway through, there are three separate lists with 32 specific points from three different books, mixed in with lengthy references to two different books in the space of three pages. That's a lot for a person to process. With the whole book like this (more or less), the effect is rather overwhelming. There is also the reality that many of these authors, being the Christian leaders of our era, have helped create the very attitudes that Dr. Tan is, in part, arguing against.

Dr. Tan is giving us the literary equivalent of a conference on servanthood. Think of him as the moderator, with a panel of all the famous evangelical Christians of our era speaking in turn about their views. With this perspective, Full Service becomes quite interesting, not necessarily as a personal read but as an excellent text for a church staff or ministry team to read through together. A chapter a week with a discussion about how to work out the many suggestions would be extremely helpful in guiding leaders toward a renewal of their priorities.

However helpful this is, by the end I am left wishing that instead of a conference Dr. Tan would have trusted his own vast experience and put aside the lists others have made. In trying to be comprehensive he feels he must depend upon others for their thoughts, arguing through popular appeal rather than original insight. This makes him seem more of a graduate student first exploring the topic of servanthood than a pastor and professor with many years of learning in both practice and theory. When Dr. Tan actually does defer to his experience, the book rises to a new level. Unfortunately, these moments are rare. Still, even as disjointed and over-dependent on other sources as it is, Full Service is certainly a worthwhile read, and along with Scripture, an excellent way to begin a broader study of real Christian service.

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