Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church

by Paul David Tripp

No leader can be left to himself. No leader should be permitted to drive away fellow leaders who have godly concerns. No leader should command loyalty in a way that compromises gospel integrity and morality. No leader’s ministry fruit should result in his heart not being protected. Every leader, no matter how powerful and successful, should be willing to look at himself in the reliable mirror of the word of God.

it is true of every believer and that we live in a daily state of spiritual war and must therefore live with eyes open, heart engaged, mind alert, and protective gear in place—how

spiritual pride leaves you exposed to spiritual attack.

Perhaps there is no better defense against spiritual attack than humility;

theological knowledge, powerful gifts, ministry experience, and success can distort the way a leader views himself.

am very concerned when a leadership community has no time for and gives no place to honest and protective conversations about the spiritual war, inside us and outside us, that is the regular life of every leader in every church and ministry everywhere.

We cannot allow ourselves to deny evidence that a leader is under spiritual siege or has been deceived into stepping over God’s boundaries because we are afraid of uncomfortable relational moments, questions about our motives, or pushback we may receive.

Your complaint about schedule is never just about schedule, your complaint about exhaustion is never just about how tired you are, and your complaint that you never seem to get the break you think you need is never just about time. All horizontal complaints have a vertical component.

Church life was not designed to be comfortable. What is the church? It’s a chosen gathering of unfinished people, still grappling with the selfishness of sin and the seduction of temptation, living in a fallen world, where there is deception and dysfunction all around.

As a leader, you are not called to mastery; you’re called to servanthood. The master who called you didn’t live the entitled life of a master but the life of a suffering servant.

The pathway to freedom is servanthood, the pathway to greatness is slavery, and the pathway to deep and lasting joy—joy that people and circumstance cannot take away—is denying yourself.

Hypercritical theological arrogance is not the fruit of a servant’s heart. Looking for people to troll on Twitter is not what occupies the heart of a servant. Pride of accomplishment contradicts servant humility.

Resistance in the face of the loving advice, concern, watchfulness, and rebuke of fellow leaders is resistance against your servant position.

It is in the soil of the devastation and humiliation of confession that servant leaders grow. In the pain of personal candor, lust for power wanes and passion for the gospel grows.

Every leadership community needs to pray together for grace to see sin as dark, despicable, destructive, and dishonoring to God as it actually is. Every leadership community needs to regularly cry out for help, admitting that sin doesn’t always look sinful.

none of us, from the most influential leader down to the least influential follower, responds to life based on the pure facts of our existence. Rather, all our responses are the result of how we have interpreted those facts.

Since the fall, people look horizontally for what they were designed to find vertically. They ask people, places, and things to do for them what only identity in the Lord can do.

A job is a wonderful provision from God, but if it becomes your identity, it will leave you regularly unhappy and will destroy your family.

Your marriage is a significant human relationship, but if it becomes your identity, you will ask your spouse to be your personal messiah, placing on your spouse a burden that he or she will never be able to bear.

Your body is a significant aspect of who you are, but if you look to it as your primary source of identity, then aging, weakness, or dise...

There is always the temptation this side of eternity to look for identity horizontally, but looking there never delivers what you seek and never results in a harvest of good fruit.

In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Gal. 3:26)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:19–20)

Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:24)

The truths of the gospel, that is, the radical realities of the presence, promises, power, love, and grace of the Savior, are the only rock of stability for a ministry leader.

The most controlling people I have counseled or worked with have always proven to be the most fearful. When you look somewhere for what you weren’t meant to find there, you tend to be afraid, and the way to assuage your fear is to control what needs to be controlled in order to best guarantee that you find what you’re looking for.

Psalm 112:7 says of the righteous man: He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

He meets us in our weaknesses, smashes our idols, exposes our hearts, and then draws us near once again and says, “I’ve called you to my service, not because you are able but because I am. Rest your heart on my grace and don’t look elsewhere for what only I can give you.”

It’s not necessarily true that a theologically insightful leader is spiritually mature.

may we remember, with honesty and humility of heart, that the grace we extend to others is always the grace we also need ourselves.

Big, rapid, short-lived growth is not what God is after; that’s why he chose the oak tree and not the mushroom for his word picture. He is after oak trees, long-term spiritual maturity, not just for our eternal good but also for the never-ending display of his glory.

Biblical literacy is not the same as spiritual maturity.

lasting change is most often a process and not an event.

God is patient in love, judgment, sovereignty, wisdom, power, and mercy. He is willing to do the same thing in you and for you again and again until it takes root and flourishes. He is willing to say the same thing to you over and over again until you hear and live it. He greets your weakness with patience and not disgust. He responds to your wanderings with the patience of rescuing grace and not with condemnation. He patiently picks you up when you fall. He patiently dresses your self-inflicted wounds. He patiently stands in your way when you want your own way. He never tires of you. He never turns his back on you and walks away. He patiently gives himself to the work that he has begun in you, and he will patiently continue until his work is done. His work is a process, not an event.

you cannot grieve what you do not see, you cannot confess what you haven’t grieved, and you can’t repent of what you haven’t confessed.

If confession is the result of eyes that now see and a heart that is grieved, it will be followed by a desire for rescuing and transforming grace.

You don’t follow God by talking about following him but by following him in joyful humility and submission.

There are times when what we say we believe doesn’t seem to be guiding our actions, reactions, and responses

God will not surrender his glory to another.

effective, long-term ministry leadership takes courage. You will face opposition. You will endure accusations, misunderstandings, and questions about your qualifications. At times precious relationships will be strained and family burdens will weigh you down. Physical illness and weakness might at times make ministry look impossible, and you’ll feel weak and unable, not up to the task God has assigned you. The enemy will taunt and tempt. At times your work will bear no visible fruit. You will be tempted to fantasize about an easier place or ministry. There may be times when you feel undervalued and underappreciated. At times you might feel overburdened by trying to balance family ministry with your gospel ministry, and it seems you’re not doing either well.