Cleaning Up Dog Poop

I sent this article in to Relevant Magazine. I don't know if they would be interested in publishing it, but I thought I'd put it on here for everyone (yeah, all those people that check my blog on a regular basis, yeah right) to see. Hope you enjoy it.

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Cleaning Up Dog Poop: A Lesson in Servant-Leadership

By Bill Sines

Several weeks ago my wife and I stopped at an Amish house (we live in the heart of Amish country in northern Indiana) that had advertised by the main road that they had Shih Tzu puppies for sale. My wife had had a Shih Tzu as a young girl and had always loved this breed. So down the dirt road we drove toward the white house with several outbuildings.

When we got there we were greeted by the lady and her husband, and they proceeded to show us the puppies they had on site. We got the Shih Tzu puppies out of their pen and put them in the yard to play. My mother-in-law was there too, as she was looking to purchase one of these puppies as well. The dogs were pretty cute as they played with each other in the grass; they were clumsy balls of fur, falling all over each other and our feet. The Amish guy offered to reduce the price if we took two. So we bought two; one for us and one for my mother-in-law.

The thing is no one ever told me that such a little dog can produce so much in the way of fecal matter! We also have a 2.5 pound Yorkshire Terrier, and she sure doesn’t crap this much.

Now we’ve been working on house training this dog for some time now, and she still doesn’t have the hang of it. We’ve finally gotten her to go outside now, but she just doesn’t get the idea of going all the way out in the yard…yep, when we sit at the dinner table and look out on the back porch, we can see all the business she’s done for the past few days. It’s really starting to get gross.

So where is all this going? Well, in church today we studied Matthew 20:20-28. Consider verses 25-28:

But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

All this time, as I looked out back and saw all the crap on the back porch, in my heart I was saying, “I’m not going to clean that up. That’s my wife’s job since it’s her dog.” I realized at church today that I’ve had the wrong attitude. I’ve been thinking about my rights and how that I shouldn’t have to clean up that stupid dog’s poo. Really, it’s the wrong attitude.

In the kingdom of God it’s different. We should have an attitude of service; we should develop a reputation of servanthood. In this situation I knew what I should have have been doing all along—I should have been setting an example for my family by cleaning up that crap without complaining.

Awhile ago I saw an episode of Seinfeld where he was doing this standup routine about having to pick up a pet’s “business” in the city. He was saying that if aliens really were watching us from outer space they would look down on our planet and see all these beings following these other beings around picking up their “business.” They would say something like, “Yeah, we know who’s really in charge.” They would conclude that if some being could get some other being to follow them around and pick up their crap then they must be in charge. I thought that was pretty funny.

The truth is it’s really humbling to pick up animal poop. And that’s exactly what I needed. I needed a little pride adjustment. It’s important for us to remember what leadership is all about in the kingdom. It’s about service. It’s about servanthood. It’s about being last in a world where everyone wants to be first. The church definitely needs leaders like this. The church needs people who will take the lead in a servant role by picking up crap.

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