LEAD:
12 Gospel Principles for Leadership
in the Church
By Paul David Tripp
Crossway. 231 pages. £15.99
ISBN 978 1 433 567 636
Here is a vintage Paul Tripp book. By God’s grace it will search you, humble you, and point you to a wonderful Saviour.
Written by someone who has ‘been there, done that’, he carries gravitas when he says that the most dangerous thing about ministry is ministry. The very act of doing something for the Lord, especially if it is ‘successful’, can introduce a deadly danger into personal and church life. We become aware of ‘achievement’ and begin living for it, instead of serving Him. The longer we have been in ministry, the more a temptation this becomes. This book is a necessary read in a day when, sadly, serious leadership failure has been all too prominent.
From ego to gospel grace
He unpacks this main idea in 12 hard-hitting sections. No. 1 argues that a ministry community whose time is controlled by doing the business of the church tends to be spiritually unhealthy. Prayer is perfunctory, people are seen as obstacles, and leaders take credit for what they could never have achieved on their own. Ego needs are subtly present as recognition, entitlement, and some form of ‘status’, shape things. His second principle shows that gospel grace must characterise our nurturing of one another instead.
Part of that (Principle 3) will be to recognise our limits of gift, time, energy and maturity. Naturally this leads, fourthly, to the need of balancing the various callings of our lives and checking the danger of Christian workaholism.
Service = sacrifice + suffering
Section 5 is a necessary underscoring of the need to acknowledge that character is more important than structure or strategies. Character gets tested – the volume button of any flaws here will only get turned up in ministry. That is especially so because we are involved in a spiritual war zone. We must employ appropriate weaponry (Principle 6). And we must embrace a servant attitude (No. 7). He points out that service will always involve sacrifice and suffering. He warns younger leaders about developing a superior and complaining ‘what’s wrong with these people?’ mindset, and an unwillingness to take up the call to serve if it involves problems.
Principle 8 is an encouragement to candour. For that to happen, leaders must be approachable and authentic. To be that, we must be grounded in Christ, and not find our identity in what we do for Him (No. 9). Principle 10 urges a showing of grace to others, allowing lots of room for new starts and fresh beginnings after sin and failure.
As someone nearing retirement from paid ministry, No. 11 caught my eye – it is about longevity. It can only be achieved if we are embedded in real gospel community; that is, we are a member of a church and not just have a formal role in it. We also need to recognise ‘the oaks of righteousness’ that the Lord is growing His people to be (Isa. 61:1-3), take time! He concludes in Principle 12 with a stress on practicing the presence of the only one whose power, promises, and grace can free us to serve Christianly.
Not a ‘how to’ book
This is not a book about ecclesiology, and finer details about how leadership teams might work all this out are absent. But, like a physio massage session on aching muscles, having been worked over by this book, the Lord’s kindness left me challenging my self-centredness, more aware of the subtle allurements of power, and more aware of the lovely grace of Jesus. If it can do that for me, it will surely help you too.
