Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church

by Paul David Tripp

It is rooted in divine acts of intervention and substitution that if not real and historical would rob the gospel of its reliability, promise, and power. But the gospel is not just a set of historical facts; it is also a collection of present redemptive realities.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to be your life hermeneutic, that is, the means by which you understand and make sense of life. This is important because human beings don’t live life based on the facts of their experience but on their interpretation of the facts.

As a ministry leader, you are doing theological work not just when you preach, teach, or lead but also in the ways that you think about yourself, understand your ministry, and relate to fellow leaders.

I write convinced that we, the community of believers, can be the most honest community on earth because there is nothing that could be known, revealed, or exposed about us that hasn’t been covered by Christ’s atoning work.

Could it be that we are looking to the wrong models to understand how to lead?

Could it be that we have forgotten that the call to lead Christ’s church is not summarized by organizing, running, and funding a weekly catalog of religious gatherings and events?

To add to their out-of-control feeling, this crisis had shattered their unity. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the crisis had exposed how thin and easily shatterable their unity was.

But I am concerned that weaknesses in the leadership community have the power to not only weaken the function and witness of what appears to be a very healthy church but may also, in what seems to be an instant, cast that church into a quagmire that can damage and divert its ministry for a long time.

I likely would’ve thought, They’re not ready, it’s just too soon. They need to know so much more. They need to come to a deeper understanding of what just happened. They need time to mature. But in the middle of the most amazing, confusing, and gloriously mind-bending moment in history, Jesus did not hesitate; he simply said, “Go.”

He was saying to these men that there was no situation, no location, or no community outside of his authority and sovereign rule.