Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church

by Paul David Tripp

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb. 10:19–25)

At the center of the nurturing work of a spiritually healthy and productive leadership community is not a plan, but a person, Jesus. He is our confidence, our hope, our direction, our guide, our protector, and the ultimate nurturer of those he has called to lead his church. He did what we could never do for ourselves: open up access to intimate communion with God.

A Gospel Community Is Honest

The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:15–16)

if the acceptance and respect of fellow leaders or of the most powerful leader in the room becomes more important to us than honesty within ourselves, before God, and in relation to one another, we give room for sin to germinate, grow, and take control. Communities where leaders fall are often communities in which humble confession is not only not encouraged; it is silenced by a whole range of unspoken fears.

I need to work in a leadership community that is characterized by forgiveness and fervent prayer so that I can confess the weariness, wandering, and unfaithfulness of my heart to those who will take me to where help can be found. There are a whole host of leadership idolatries (position, power, success, acclaim, reward, etc.) for which there needs to be regular confession and intercession.

One of the sure signs of a spiritually healthy leadership community is the degree to which heartfelt, humble, honest confession is not only possible but a regular ingredient of the life and work of that community. Do the members of your community fear being honest about their sin, weaknesses, and failures, and, if so, what changes do you need to make?

A Gospel Community Is Humble

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. (2 Cor. 1:8–11)

Leader pride produces personality cults, while leader humility stimulates worship of God. A gospel-rooted leadership community is marked by humility, and that humility engenders a confidence in people that runs deeper than a trust in leaders. It engenders in people a confidence in the presence and grace of the Redeemer and a desire to live in a way that gives all glory to him. Is your leadership community known for its humility?

A Gospel Community Is Patient

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:7–11)

Willingness to wait with patient hearts is a clear sign that your leadership community has been and is being shaped by the gospel.

But when the gospel is nurtured in the hearts of leaders, they lead with a robust rest in God’s sovereignty; his wisdom; his convicting, convincing, and transforming grace; his love for his own church; his faithfulness to his promises; his willingness to intervene; and his timing, which is always right. How has impatience interfered with the ministry work God has called your leadership community to do?

A Gospel Community Is Forgiving

Ephesians 4: Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. . . . Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Eph. 4:25–27, 29–32)

Paul begins this wonderful call to forgiveness with a call to speak the truth, and he later describes what that truth telling should look like. It is shaped by a desire to build up in a way that is appropriate to the moment by seeking to root the offending leader once again in the glory and grace that is his or hers as a child of God. Any other way of speaking in a time of failure is unwholesome in God’s eyes, unhelpful to the offending leader, and disruptive to the unity of that leadership community.

the more I am bathing my heart in the wonder of God’s forgiveness of me, the more willing I am to forgive others.

If we are going to live and minister together in spiritually healthy leadership communities, we need to fervently pray that God will rescue us from us, rescue us from the pride that causes us to be more focused on the failure of others than our own, rescue us from our tendency to speak in unwholesome ways when we are disappointed, rescue us from the temptation to replay a failure over and over again in our minds, and rescue us from responding too quickly with the judgment of anger so that we can respond with tender, forgiving grace.

A Gospel Community Is Encouraging

Encouragement focuses leaders on the glory of what God has already done and on his power to do even more, and in so doing, builds hope, courage, and confidence in the face of whatever difficulties, challenges, or obstacles may be in their leadership pathway. Encouragement captures the hearts of leaders with the gospel and guards their hearts from discouragement and feelings of inability. Gospel encouragement is also a defense against the ever-present danger of the pride in accomplishment, because it puts credit where credit is due, that is, at the feet of the Savior. Are your leaders more apt to encourage than to criticize and to judge?

A Gospel Community Is Protective

I know I need this protection because I tend to be blind to my blindness. It is hard to escape that the writer of Hebrews is calling us to humbly admit that the grace of personal spiritual insight is the product of community. Does your leadership community function as a protective community, giving one another sight where sight is needed, thereby protecting leaders from the deceitfulness of sin?

A Gospel Community Is Restorative

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (James 5:19–20)

But a leadership community that has been tenderized by the gospel, so that its members are humbly aware of their own susceptibilities and the extent to which they are being forgiven and protected, is not quick to judge and separate but joyfully gives and does whatever necessary to rescue and restore this loved one who has given way to sin. I will address this more fully in chapter 10. Does your leadership community have a track record of leader restoration? If we, as leaders, are ever going to lead those entrusted to our care to give their time, energy, and resources to the cause of the gospel in their generation and at their location, we must function as a gospel community so that we have the humility to battle together, the courage to do great things, and the insight to confess and forsake those things that may be in the way. So we remind ourselves of the massive forgiveness we have received and that our Savior battles for us so that the gospel will shape us even when we don’t have the sight or the sense to battle ourselves.

Every leader is a package of God-given gifts and God-assigned limits. It is dangerous to focus on the one without humbly remembering the other.

You are not just a package of strengths, gifts, and experiences; you are also a collection of weaknesses and susceptibilities. It is here that the gospel is such a sweet encouragement.

We do not have to fear our limits because God doesn’t send us out on our own; where he sends us, he goes too. We do not have to curse our weaknesses because our weaknesses are a workroom for his grace. We do not have to hide or deny our places of immaturity because God is able. Our limits and weaknesses are not in the way of what God can do through us, but our denial of limits and our delusions of independent strength are.

consider with you four areas of limits that God in his Creator wisdom has set for us and how constant recognition and humble admission of these limits help a leadership community assess i...

1. You Have Limited Gifts

Independent, domineering leadership is functional denial of what the Bible teaches about both the nature of the body of Christ and the gifting of those called by God to lead it.

Leaders must push the gifts of others forward, willing to listen and willing to submit to the wisdom of others who are gifted in ways that they are not. Humble leaders surround themselves not with ministry clones but with leaders who have gifts that they do not and are therefore smart in ways they are not and strong in areas they are weak. This kind of community will always produce a quality and longevity of fruit that won’t ever be produced by a domineering leader. It is unbiblical for any leader to tell himself that he does not need the full expression of the gifts of others in order for him to do the work that God has gifted him to do.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). Or hear Luke: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).

The size of your expectancy of yourself, the size of your responsibility, and the size of God’s righteous judgment are connected to the size of the gifts he has given you.

You will be tempted to confuse your giftedness with your level of spiritual maturity. Yes, it is true: your gifts mean you have been called to suffer for the sake of the giver and what he intends to do through you (see 2 Cor. 1:3–11).

Recognizing the limits of God-given gifts and the responsibility and suffering that come with those gifts is an essential part of a ministry community establishing and maintaining not only its fruitfulness but also its ongoing spiritual health. A leadership community that humbly recognizes the limits of God-given gifts will establish a ministry culture of respectful, appreciative, and joyful cooperation.

2. You Have Limited Time

Picture a triangle of interlocking circles, with one circle at the top point and two interlocking circles forming the bottom of the triangle. So there are three interlocking circles of the same size. Those circles are meant to represent the three vital dimensions of your life. The top circle is your spiritual life (I know that all of life is spiritual), that is, your life of personal worship, devotion, and spiritual discipline. The left bottom circle is your relational life, that is, marriage, parenting, body of Christ, friends, and neighbors. The right bottom circle is your labor life, that is, your life of gospel ministry and church or ministry leadership. These are the three major areas of your life that God has designed to fill your 24/7, along with the Sabbath of leisure and rest.

It really is possible to have a spiritually and relationally healthy family (circle of fellowship and friends) and have a dedicated and productive ministry life at the same time.

You Have Limited Energy

they get right to the heart of how the gospel empowers me to live and to the heart of the gospel race I have been called to run as a gospel leader.

This conversation is not about being legalistic or judgmental but about joyfully living in the freedom of the gospel, which is not only our core message but the daily hope of everyone in our leadership community. A spiritually healthy leadership community cares not only for the spiritual health of its leaders but for their physical well-being as well.

4. You Have Limited Maturity

A spiritually healthy leadership community participates in the ongoing personal spiritual growth of each one of its members.

God is not afraid to call limited people into gospel leadership, so we should not be afraid, with gospel humility and hope, to put those limits on the table, not just once, but again and again, knowing we will need to retain this commitment until God’s work in us is complete.

That’s how it was meant to be by God’s design—creation in its proper place doing what it was meant to do, peace reigning from the earth’s deepest valleys all the way up to the highest heavens. No brokenness, no dysfunction, and no impending problem around the corner—everything, everywhere and in every place, in balance.

we groan because the imbalance that has inflicted our world is not just outside us; that would be difficult enough. No, it is also inside us. We are out of balance.

The brokenness, drama, pain, and sadness in our lives are the result not just of the imbalance around us but also of the imbalance that still exists inside us. Thankfully, by the power of divine, transforming grace we are being progressively brought into greater balance, and we live with the surety that someday balance will be fully restored, inside and around us, and things will be where they were meant to be, doing what they were intended to do. Every leadership community should be periodically discussing these things.

If prayer can serve the purpose of something other than honoring God, seeking his help, and committing to his service, then so can everything else in the life of a ministry leader. Every good thing that takes on more weight than God intended becomes a bad thing, something disruptive and dangerous. It’s not wrong to want to be respected by your fellow leaders. In fact, you could argue that you can’t do your work as a leadership community without healthy mutual respect. But that respect must not take on more weight in your heart than the honor of God does.