1.     Why God makes sense in World that Doesn’t, Gavin Ortlund

What’s going on with the Ortlund family? Other than the magisterial Jesus as the Victory of God by N.T. Wright, Dane Ortund’s Gentle & Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Suffers is my favorite book on Jesus. His brother, Gavin Ortlund, has also written one of the best apologetical books that I’ve ever read. Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t was my absolute favorite book that I read in 2025.

Ortlund sets up his apologetic shop at the intersection of beauty and truth: “Beauty is a powerful tool for…apathy because it has a kind of persuasive power that reaches down to the heart,” (pp. 7). In short, the book taps into the longing for beauty inside every human heart. By narrative story-telling, Ortlund describes the truth of Christianity wherein people, even outside the faith, might say: “I want this to be true. I ache for this to be true, because this Christian vision of a life with God is so beautiful and compelling.” This is an apologetic that is a far cry from the arid “5 Proofs of God” but rather a compelling invitation to “taste and see” that the Lord is good.

2.     Rejoicing in Christ, Michael Reeves

This is a beautifully written book on Christology that will accompany our sermon series “The Incomparable Christ” via a Church Wide Study guide written by our own Rev. Mike Elmer.

Simply put, my soul was profoundly moved by Rejoicing in Christ. It caused me to worship. It caused me to stand amazed and contemplate – in awe – Christ’s person. I believe this book will cause you to want to follow Christ with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. I cannot recommend this book enough!

Michael Reeves tackles a theological topic – Christology – in a way that reads more like a sermon than a book. Pithy. Profound. Unforgettable. You will enjoy this book. It will be good for your soul.

3.     New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, Paul David Tripp

A simple, gospel-centered devotional that is not all fluff and flowers but rings with the truth of the gospel, sings with practical ways to live out the faith, and frequently calls for heartfelt repentance and confession of sin that warms the heart towards God? Sign me up!

If you utilize this devotional, you will have the affections of your heart stirred for Jesus Christ. New Morning Mercies is the best daily devotional book that I’ve ever read.

4.     Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology, Kevin DeYoung

Want to sharpen your theology but not yet up for tackling thousands of pages of theology? Daily Doctrine offers a succinct summary of all the major loci of theology. I am still enjoying this theology refresher alongside New Morning Mercies. Reading both these books together captures the head and the heart in wonderful ways!

Each “daily doctrine” consists of only about 500 words which compels DeYoung to give concise explanations of complex theological doctrines. With 260 entries, Daily Doctrine a joy to read.

Reading Hint: If this is your first attempt at systematic theology, I’d suggest potentially skipping the first major section of “Prolegomena”.

5.     Spurgeon: A Life, by Alex DiPrima

A fascinating biography of one of the greatest preachers the English language has ever witnessed. The book is replete with edifying lessons of faith from the life of Charles Spurgeon (aka “The Prince of Preachers”) without neglecting the history of his life and times.

For Spurgeon, you might imagine that his pastoral life went from mountaintop to mountaintop as he oversaw one of the most explosive periods of Protestant growth in the history of the city of London at Metropolitan Tabernacle. Not so fast. Spurgeon was attacked by the press, fought with “wild beasts” within the church (like the apostle Paul in Ephesus), and suffered from kidney disease, rheumatism, and frequent bouts of the gout which made him often fight for his faith through these seasons of “melancholy” and “the dark night of the soul”. 

6.     A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation, Matthew Bingham

Our staff is reading together A Heart Aflame for God at my encouragement. Undoubtedly, the book will vie for numerous Christian book awards at the end of the year, as it was published in 2025.

What does spiritual formation mean? How can you “keep your heart” warm and alive towards God? Bingham highlights what he calls the “Reformation triangle” of Bible reading, meditation, and prayer which are at the heart of the Reformed vision of spiritual formation. For the last 50 years, evangelical have typically sought resources outside the Reformed tradition to do spiritual formation’s heavy lifting, yet Bingham argues that the Reformed stream of spirituality is more than up to the task! This is a book of robust theological retrieval of Puritan authors, where you feel power of the Reformed vision of spiritual formation by having your own heart strangely warmed by the Lord in your pursuit of the spiritual life.

7.     Faith Alone, Thomas Schreiner

In 2017, a series of five books on the 5 Solas of the Reformation were released to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation as Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis to the Door of Wittenberg Castle Church. Faith Alone is the best book, by far, in the series. Respected New Testament scholar, Thomas Schreiner, provides simple clarity and helpful historical background while providing his prototypical careful exegetical insights of key New Testament texts. I maintain that the “5 Solas” embody the most succinct expression of Reformed theology, and “faith alone” is a great place to start (i.e. 5 Solas = salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to the scripture alone to the glory of God alone).

8.     The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, Hagberg and Guelich

I preached on Breakthrough: The Journey through the Wall in the series “How do People Change?” The six stages of faith come from The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith. It’s a helpful framework-type of book which helpfully identifies and gives voice to the experiences of Christians at each stage of faith. The Critical Journey provides “next steps” for people “who have gotten “stuck” at “The Wall” or at various stages of the life of faith. As long as you recognize that the book tilts more towards sociology than biblical theology, you can appreciate the book for what it is.

9.     The Valley of Vision (A Puritan Prayer Book)

I came back to using The Valley of Vision regularly again in 2025. The Puritan Prayer book serves me by priming the pump for my own prayers. Do you ever wake up groggy? Overwhelmed? Not feeling like you want to pray? On those days, I begin with The Valley of Vision before I open the Bible, and these biblically rich and theological robust prayers suddenly jump-start my own prayer life in wonderful ways. The Valley of Vision is a wonderful resource to keep next to your Bible.  

(Hint: The Leather Bound edition is well-worth the money.)

10.  FUN BOOK: Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind, Nate Bergatze

A very funny book by comedian Nate Bergatze.

For a long time, my favorite comedian has been Brian Regan. I still believe the best hour of comedy on YouTube is “I walked on the moon” by Regan; his clip of the differences between men and women is hilarious. Nate Bergatze’s clip of time travel is memorable and funny; his bit about trying to check-in at the airport is fun times; Washington’s Dream at SNL was an instant classic. In Big Dumb Eyes, you can definitely hear his distinctive comedic voice coming through the stories he tells. It was a fun page-turner to wind down the night.

The last three months have seen assassinations, inexplicable violence, and a maelstrom of bewildering emotions and vehement responses cutting across the geographic, cultural, and social media landscape of our divided country.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination (Sept 10) at Utah Valley University.

Evergreen High School shooting (Sept 10) near Denver left 1 dead and 2 wounded.

Annunciation Catholic School shooting (Aug 27) in Minneapolis left two children dead and 21 people injured, including 18 school children.

Iryna Zarutska (Aug 22), Ukrainian immigrant, was killed on Charlotte’s public transportation.

Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and husband Mark were assassinated (June 14) in their home outside of Minneapolis.

The two words that have come to my mind in these last days, weeks, and months are “madness” and “evil”. Violence has a long history, winding all the way back to the Bible’s second generation when Cain killed Abel. One of the best titled books on the doctrine of sin comes from Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. entitled “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be”. These last three months have increasingly felt like “not the way it’s supposed to be”.

Three short phrases are rattling around in my soul at the present moment.

(1) Evil is a reality. (2) Lament is a necessity. (3) Jesus is still our only hope.

Evil is a reality. As Andrew Delbanco writes, “A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.” I am thankful that our Christian tradition has the resources for naming evil, identifying evil, and (ultimately) triumphing over evil because of the cross of Christ. Our secular neighbors, bereft of the Christian story of redemption, have a much harder time coping with the basic storyline and complex plot of evil in our world. I wish that our culture would take the advice of Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he succinctly suggested, “Of two evils, choose neither.” Yet, that is not the reality of our world. Evil is an ever-present reality in our world.

I don’t know about you, but I am definitely having a hard time wrapping my mind and heart around the madness and the violence and the evil that is taking place in our country. Friends, this is precisely the nature of evil! The nature of evil is inexplicable. Think of the sudden appearance of the serpent (Satan) in the Garden of Eden. How did he get there? In the middle of God’s good creation? In the middle of Paradise? It’s one of the biggest mysteries of the entire Bible, right up there with the Trinity and the Virgin Birth. Evil is a reality yet often inexplicable by its very nature. So you are not alone in being saddened, bewildered, and upset. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Lament is a Necessity. I actually preached on lament on June 8, 2025 with these words:

“Why should you embrace the prayer of lament in your life? Because if you don’t suffer in a biblical way, you will suffer in a secular way. You will stuff the suffering down deep into your soul (until it eventually explodes out onto others). Or, you will flit around on the surface and shallowness of life.”

Lament is not despair. Lament is not crying into the void. Lament is bringing our pain, our sadness, our grief, and our questions before God in prayer. Lament prayers engage in a “piety of protest” for justice and healing and the reign of God not to tarry. Lament is a necessity when we see evil encroaching into our world.

“Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust” (Mark Vroegop). I find myself thinking: “Yes, that’s what I want to do, O Lord, in the midst of evil.” I want to establish a posture of prayer in my life that leads to greater trust in the Sovereign God of Love!

If that’s what you long for, I encourage you to lament:

Lament before you scroll. Lament before you post. Lament before you open your mouth. Lament before you go to see where the latest cultural battle lines are being drawn up on social media. Lament before you watch your favorite TV talk show host.

Friends, evil is increasingly becoming a social media phenomenon. So guard your soul. Pray before you scroll. Do you hear me? Pray before you scroll, especially when evil abounds.

Jesus is still our only hope. “God did not abolish the fact of evil: He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead” (Dorothy L. Sayers). The victory of Jesus on Calvary’s cross is God’s  gigantic “NO!” to the evil in our world. Evil will cease. Tears will be wiped away. Death is on a short leash held by God. Yet, as we live “in between the times” – we wait.

But here’s the deal: we wait with hope!

Jesus will reign. Jesus will be victorious. Jesus is still our only hope.

That’s a truth that brings rest to my soul. That’s a truth that brings freedom from “trying to figure it all out”.

In my bewilderment. In my righteous anger. In my compassion fatigue. In my conversations with friends. Jesus is still my only hope. That’s a truth that I can take all the way to the bank of eternity.

So friends: do not lose hope. Jesus is still reigning and ruling!

Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

 ****

P.S. In October and November, the pastoral staff at Trinity will be offering a class entitled “Christianity and the Public Square”. See the details below.

Christianity and the Public Square

Community Hour (10:15 – 11:00)

9 Weeks | Sundays in October & November | Seminar Room

Purpose:

1. Expand our understanding of the biblical and theological basis for Christianity’s role in the public square, including our winsome engagement with our post-Christendom culture as a Jesus follower.

2. Increase (and practice) our ability to engage others with kindness, understanding, civility, charity, and love with those who disagree with our beliefs on politics and socio-cultural issues with a view towards re-establishing the church as a community which models honest dialogue full of grace and truth for a watching world. We will practicing “hugging it out” at the end of our dialogues together!

3. Become conversant with a few frameworks and paradigms for understanding the Christian’s engagement in the public square with a view towards talking winsomely about the cultural stumbling blocks in our divided age with grace and truth.

OCT 5: Framework Building Block #1: Christianity and Culture

OCT 12: Framework Building Block #2: Four Approaches to Race, Politics and Gender | The Carter Framework for “This Cultural Moment”

OCT 19: What is a Healthy Patriotism as a Christian? What is Christian Nationalism? (Round #1)

OCT 26: Social Media and the Public Square

NOV 2: What is a Healthy Patriotism as a Christian? What is Christian Nationalism? (Round #2)

NOV 9: Loving Our Enemies | The Sermon of the Mount Applied

NOV 16: A Short History of Revival: Theology, Themes, and Traits

NOV 23: The New Sexual Revolution: A Way Forward with Grace and Truth

NOV 30: Race & the Bible: A Beginning Word on Racial Tensions, Immigration, and the Call of the Christian

At Trinity, the focus of our leadership culture is that pastors and elders come together to seek the mind of Christ for the good of our church. In the leadership space of our church, we are not primarily trying to host “business meetings” across the leadership landscape of our congregation but to cultivate a true spiritual community consisting of a humble, collaborative, Fruit of the Spirit leadership culture where leaders are – in community – increasingly growing in their walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church.

Our leaders long to model what the apostle Paul audaciously communicated to the church in Corinth: Follow me, as I follow Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Our leaders also recognize that “All ministry is Christ’s ministry” which means that Christ as the Head of the Church is the One who gets all the glory, honor, and credit for any good thing which happens in our midst.

What does this look like in practice? Over the years, our leadership has adopted a number of ideas and practices for leaning into spiritual health in the leadership space.

First, our Session leadership has adopted six “Leadership Culture Principles” so that our leadership teams remain healthy and focused on the mission of Jesus. We covenant together to speak grace and truth directly to one another (rather than gossip), honor one another (rather than criticize), and believe the best about one another (rather than cultivate a culture of mistrust and suspicion). We even covenant together to utilize email communication with each other to the glory of God!  

(You can read all six principles here.)

Second, several years ago, Session decided that the way of wisdom for Trinity to lean into greater health for our organization and greater unity within the body of Christ and to increasingly model a life of discipleship for our congregation at the leadership level was to create a LEADERSHIP PIPELINE for current and future leaders of the church. All within the congregation are invited but Session has mandated that all elders, deacons, and session team members go through this leadership pipeline (known as “The Way: Apprenticeship with Jesus”) at least once during their three-year term leading the body of Christ.

“The Way: Apprenticeship with Jesus” is about 20 Sessions combined in the Fall & Spring; we meet at 6:00-7:30 pm the first, second, and third Thursday of the month – we eat together and pray together and study together and practice the spiritual disciplines together. Sign up here.

Third, we pioneered the inaugural “Leadership Lab” recently in our congregation. The purpose is two-fold:

• The first goal is to provide equipping and training on select topics and themes with a view towards the deep discipleship of our church. Think of it as “ADVANCED DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING” that we cannot explore from the pulpit or can be difficult to delve into even in a Life Group setting.

• The second goal is to help our church family and leadership teams get on the same page so we can continue to be the church family that God is calling us to be.

Fourth, for the last several years, I have urged our new elders to listen to “Turning Sessions into Spiritual Communities”, a leadership talk by Doug Resler at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC)’s National Gathering. [NOTE: “Session” is the highest governing body in our polity consisting of sitting elders of the church.] The ideas inculcated by Doug Resler deeply resonate with me: the practice of praying and eating and studying together – becoming a Spiritual Community – is not incidental but a key aspect of what Session is called to do as our elders serve and lead the church in the way of Jesus Christ.

Thankful for Jesus who shows us the way,

Rev. Dr. Jason Carter

***View the blog post as a PDF here.

If you stay in a church for more than 8-10 years, you will need to build relationships with the “new people” of the church.

This takes work. This takes intentionality. This is good for you.

Otherwise, you will stay in the relational ghetto of “where the church was” years ago.

This is also good for the church. The new people need you to shepherd them, to befriend them, and to accept them. The new people need to hear stories of how the Holy Spirit has worked in this local community of faith.

You must be prepared to be disappointed. Frequently.

You will not like every sermon series. Or every staff hire. Or every programmatic or architectural design change in the church. Learning to be disappointed while still serving the church – with joy – is unbelievably good for your soul. And good for the church. 

Your favorite “pet ministry” will not be appreciated the way you think it should.

If God met you in a powerful way through a particular program in the life of the church – thank God for it. Don’t hold it too closely because God meets different people in different ways.

Don’t mistake the conviction of the Holy Spirit for the pastor preaching “at” you.

With a clear conscience, I can honestly say that I do not believe that I have ever intentionally preached “at” a person. In fact, I have occasionally taken out an illustration or a homiletic point if I think it might hit too close to home after a recent conversation. If you want to grow in the Christian life, just come simply to the preaching of the Word of God, and it will be God’s means of grace to you.

Recognize that after 5-7 years at the same church, you will probably experience “the grass is greener” syndrome of church membership.

The syndrome of “the grass is greener” on the other side of the (church) fence is real in our FOMO culture (Fear of Missing Out).

You may develop wanderlust: for a new preacher, a new worship band, and a new group of people.

Plodding along in the Christian faith seems…well…so ordinary.

During these seasons, you may need to be reminded that Christian growth is often slow, gradual, and plodding. You may suffer from a misdiagnosis of your spiritual condition, thinking you need something “splashy” when, in fact, you need to buckle down in your faithfulness and in your “long obedience in the same direction”.

In addition, you may need to increase your gratitude to God and intentionally show grace to others in the church during these seasons of discontentment.

After a season of leading, it is vital that you learn to extend a bunch of grace and trust to the new leaders.  

One of the hardest things to do in the church is to step out of leadership. Suddenly, you see things being done differently. Suddenly, you are not “in the know” like before.

It’s easy to be grumpy about the changes. It’s easy to feel left out or begin to complain about the changes. Learn to practice the same kind of trust and generosity of spirit that you wanted extended to you when you were in the leadership hot seat.

People you have enjoyed relationally for a season in the church will move on.

This will feel like rejection. This will feel like a wound.

You will be tempted to blame the church or the pastor. You will be tempted to think you know “the real reason” this person left the church and try to fix the church for this one person.

Practicing “graceful exits” within the life of the church is important, and, perhaps, as important as practicing “graceful welcomes”. Both will be needed for people who stay long-term in the life of the same church.

*****

For a PDF of this blog post, click here.

Leadership Culture Principle #6 is “Maturity Matters” which can also be viewed as a PDF. Over the years, the elders of Trinity Wellsprings Church have adopted several “Leadership Culture” principles to help our church flourish as an emotionally-healthy spiritually-vibrant church that seeks to honor Christ as the Head of the Church while serving together in unity as we pursue Christ’s mission together.

In the church, spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness are intimately connected. The fruit of the Spirit must increasingly characterize a Christ-like healthy church.

Mark Sayers’s leadership book A Non-Anxious Presence astutely observes an interesting dynamic for leadership networks across the broad spectrum of businesses, non-profits, and volunteer organizations. The relational nature of the body of Christ means that the church is especially susceptible to the following scenario:

As a network is swamped by chronic anxiety, it is marked by reactivity. Those within the system no longer act rationally, but rather, high emotion becomes the dominant form of interaction. The system’s focus is directed toward the most emotionally immature and reactive members. Those who are more mature and healthy begin to adapt their behavior to appease the most irrational and unhealthy. This creates a scenario where the most emotionally unhealthy and immature members in the system become de facto leaders, shaping the emotional landscape with the focus on their negative behavior and what they see as the negative behavior of others. The anxiety present envelops the vision of the organization within the system (Mark Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence).

Samuel James observes that “the spectacle of businesses, journalistic organizations, and even ministries catering to their ‘most emotionally immature’ members is familiar. Even more important is the dynamic Sayers describes, whereby those hyperactive members become ‘de facto leaders,’ because their actual leaders—and, by extension, their peers—come to see avoiding controversy as job number one. Sometimes the immature members of the network will not realize this is what’s happening. They can’t see beyond their own nose. But sometimes they do recognize it, and they take advantage accordingly. They know what vocabulary to use to get their leaders nervous; they know the specific kinds of accusations and complaints that will put the spotlight on them.”

These observations by Sayers and James are poignant reminders to the church that the emotionally healthy spirituality of its leaders and congregants is directly tied to the church’s organizational effectiveness. Highly volatile, overly reactive, and emotionally immature members of an organization have a tendency to hijack the effectiveness of a group, a ministry, or even an entire organization. This is especially true of the church that places a high priority on maintaining peaceful relationships. Yet, that “peace” often comes at a cost of organizational paralysis or tolerating behavioral values that are distinct from the organization’s stated values. When the leadership habitually caters to the “least healthy person” within a relational system, organizational decay, missional ineffectiveness, and relational burnout from the healthy members of the group is the inevitable result.

How do you discover the “culture” of an organization? One of the ways you identify organizational culture is by what kinds of immature behavior is regularly tolerated by the leadership and members of that organization. Does the organization allow constant blow-ups of anger from its leaders and members? When anger does occur, does that person typically “get what they want” from the leadership system in order to maintain the (faux) peace of the organization? Are the healthy members of the organization habituated to endure wave after wave of immature complaints and gossip from emotionally unhealthy members of the organization? Sadly, when values that transgress a church’s values are tolerated again and again, this is one way you discover the underlying “organizational culture” of your church body.[1]

What happens to an organization that perpetually caters to hyperactive leaders who display patterns of immaturity? The bill eventually comes due.[2] The church tends to suffer from a kind of adolescent paralysis, as healthy leaders spend an inordinate amount of time increasingly (and proverbially) picking up the dirty laundry left on the floor by the adolescent who has “failed to launch” maturely into adulthood. Rather than deepening the training for the potentially healthy leaders within the system, the organization gets locked into a reactive cycle of putting out the fires and chaos created by the immature adolescent. Samuel James perceptively puts his finger on the pulse of such organizations: the dynamic scissors between organizational paralysis (with nothing moving forward) and internal controversy (fire-extinguishing mode) which seems prone, like a volcano, to erupt during any moment of change or during the next bout of immaturity from an unhealthy, volatile leader.[3]

Coming to terms with the reality that organizational effectiveness and spiritual maturity are intimately connected seems oddly counterintuitive given the constant temptation for church leadership teams to mirror the wider culture. What is the fix for such a (common) problem amongst the Church?

First, the church must relentlessly prioritize the spiritual maturity and relational health of its leadership culture over a sustained period of time. The church must invest in its systems of training, insisting that the most important qualities for cultivating emotionally-healthy spiritual leaders is by developing a humble, collaborative, fruit of the Spirit leadership culture which prioritizes relationships as leaders pursue Christ (and his agenda) together. Long-term fruitfulness by pastors, elders, and ministry leaders alike is rooted in a humble, godly character that intentionally prioritizes spiritual vitality.

This requires leadership teams to equip leaders in the “soft edges” of deep discipleship by (i) practicing “bearing with one another in love” (Eph 4:2; Col. 3:13), (ii) learning to handle conflict in healthy ways after the manner of Matthew 18:15-20 and Galatians 6:1[4], (iii) discerning together the differences between “walking in the flesh” and “walking in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16-26), (iv) cultivating in community a rich practice of praying together (the Bonhofferian “Day Together”) as well as a rich practice of solitude and silence (the Bonhoefferian “Day Alone”),[5] (v) learning to exercise restraint, graciousness, self-control, and tenderness in the way we communicate with one another (Prov. 15:1, Eph. 4:29; Prov. 18:13; Matt. 12:34)[6], including the use of digital forms of communication like email, (vi) meekly “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), and (vii) cultivating the fruit of the Holy Spirit in both our individual lives and in our relational lives as leaders in the body of Christ (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, Gal. 5:22-23). The soft edges of our sanctification are not easily “downloaded” from pulpits but captured around tables and in life-on-life relationships of mutual encouragement and admonishment within the body of Christ. As such, it requires leadership teams to embrace a commitment to thick and honest relationships within the life of the church.

Second, two rocks must be in place for leadership teams to truly embrace the revolutionary idea that “maturity matters”. You know the life hack: put in the big rock in the jar first and then all the small pebbles will fit into the jar afterwards. The problem is that, in the church, most paradigms for addressing immaturity within a leadership culture only place one rock in the jar. This is understandable, albeit mistaken. It’s understandable because in the church, we do truly long to practice real forms of grace. Grace to forgive. Grace to restore. Grace to reconcile. The grace of God has the power and potential to transform self-centered sinners to God-glorifying saints. Nobody wants to minimize or downplay grace in a leadership culture, it makes rough cracks smooth and hard edges soft. It is an absolutely vital ingredient – the first rock – for developing a humble, collaborative, fruit of the Spirit leadership culture. Did Jesus not say forgive “not seven times, but seventy-seven times”, a limitless amount (Matt 18:22)? Who are we, after all, to cast the first stone (John 8:7)? We all have sin issues and blind spots galore in our own lives!

And yet: grace as a singular paradigm for building a healthy leadership culture is unbalanced and may ultimately promote the very power dynamic that Sayers and James poignantly illustrate, namely, that of empowering the most immature and unhealthy people to become the “de facto” leaders within an organization. More than one rock in the jar is needed. Why is that the case? Because receiving the grace of God actually requires – and is tied to – humility and repentance. The apostle Paul says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6 ESV) or “So then, just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him” (Col. 2:6 NIV). You are to walk (ESV) or live (NIV) in the same way you received Jesus Christ as Lord, namely, with a humble and repentant heart (which is the only way a person truly receives Jesus Christ as Lord!). Paul is effectively admonishing believers: remember the way you first came to Christ! How did that occur? By humbly repenting of your sins and coming to the foot of the cross; don’t forget that experience because your entire life should be marked with that kind of posture so that you daily experience the transforming grace of God. In the same way you came to Christ, continue to live for Christ.

The second rock – or biblical paradigm, to change metaphors – is humility and repentance. Establishing a healthy leadership culture which seeks to intimately connect spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness needs both rocks and both paradigms.

Yet, there is often a disorientation within church leadership systems because well-meaning and well-intentioned Christians intuitively have only one overarching paradigm of “what to do” when things heat up around immature, unhealthy people in the organization. Grace. They’ve only put a singular rock in the jar. Yet, without humility and repentance, grace becomes “cheap grace” which ends up tolerating (or even empowering) the kind of behaviors that jeopardize the leadership culture as well as the relational health of the body of Christ.

A healthy church culture which seeks to marry spiritual maturity with organizational effectiveness believes in a balanced gospel: overflowing and transforming grace and lives characterized by a true living out of the gospel of grace in humble repentance and penitent humility. One rock will not suffice.

In the church, spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness are intimately connected. The fruit of the Spirit must increasingly characterize a Christ-like healthy church.

*****

Other “Leadership Culture Principles” can be found here:

Leadership Culture Principle #1: The No They Policy

Leadership Culture Principle #2: The Ministry of Asking the Person to Go Directly to the Source

Leadership Culture Principle #3: All the Leaders Own the Decision: Public Fans and Private Critics

Leadership Culture Principle #4: Ideas are Born Ugly

Leadership Culture Principle #5: Email Matters: 15 Questions

Leadership Culture Principle #6: Maturity Matters
*****

[1] As Samuel James warns: “When people see an immature member be granted an extraordinary level of influence and attention-control, they will understandably infer that immaturity is effective. Eventually, whatever principled scruples they may have against such behavior will come up against the reality that their leaders appear to respond most urgently to it. This is a recipe for disaster.” Samuel James, “Does Maturity Still Matter? Christian Mission in the Age of Social Media Rewards”, Digital Liturgies Blog, Feb. 8, 2025.

[2] To loosely paraphrase Samuel James, Ibid.

[3]“If churches coddle immature members on the logic that at least those members are passionate, they are kicking a grenade down the road that can explode at any time.” Ibid.

[4] As Samuel James observes, “And how do [churches and ministry organizations] prevent the spiritually immature from controlling the vision and spirit of the network? Leaders and members are encouraged toward maturity in part by watching immature members be marginalized and discipled, rather than feared and deferred to.” One caveat here: it’s actually the immature behaviors and unhealthy sin patterns that need to be (first) named and identified and (then) discipled or confronted or eventually marginalized for the health and good of the body of Christ. Ibid.

[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

[6] Proverbs 15:1 (a gentle answer turns away wrath), Ephesians 4:29 (speak only what builds other up), Proverbs 18:13 (answering before listening is folly), Matthew 12:34 (words reflect our heart’s condition).

Leadership Culture Principle #4 is “Ideas are Born Ugly” which can also be accessed in a PDF. Over the years, the elders of Trinity Wellsprings Church have adopted several “Leadership Culture” principles to help our church flourish as an emotionally-healthy spiritually-vibrant church that seeks to honor Christ as the Head of the Church while serving together in unity as we pursue Christ’s mission together.

Ideas are Born Ugly

“We’ve always done it this way.” In the church, those six words have torpedoed more fresh ideas, more unique innovations, and more new ways of doing things than perhaps any other six words in the English language. Imagine shutting down Johannes Gutenberg with those words in 1448. Or using those words with the headstrong Augustinian monk Martin Luther in 1517 while insisting that he delay posting his Ninety-Five Theses on the doors of Wittenberg Castle Church. Or telling the Jesus Movement in the 1970s that they must not deviate from traditional hymnals because the organ, rather than the guitar and drums, was still going to be the musical instrument of the future, because, after all, “we’ve always done it this way”.

Most church leaders want to think they are open to innovation. Most church leaders want to think that they are open to trying new strategies and brand-new ideas. As long as the simple biblical gospel remains unchanged, are we not receptive to pioneering new ways of reaching the lost and new avenues of organizing the church to deliver the timeless saving message of Jesus Christ to a fallen world? Yet, as Craig Hamilton in Wisdom in Leadership puts it, many leaders have experienced the difficulty of putting forth a new idea only to see it get ripped to shreds in a hot minute:

Immediately the rest of the group jumps on the idea and rips it apart. It won’t work. We’ve tried it before. It sounds risky. They bombard it with questions about specifics – how and when and for whom and how much – and then move on to more solid discussions that are less experimental. And everyone in the room has learned a valuable lesson: we don’t do the new here. So keep it to yourself….in the meeting, when the new is put before us, the immediate instinct is to bombard it into oblivion with questions.[1]

Is a new idea really that fragile that you can bombard it into oblivion with a few hard-hitting questions? In the context of the church, the simple answer seems to be a resounding “yes”. Why is that the case?

Hamilton marshals forth two ideas – the mere exposure principle and loss aversion – which, taken together, are responsible for killing an idea before it gets a chance to be properly born.

The Mere Exposure Principle

The mere exposure principle rests on the idea that “the more familiar a thing is to a person, the more they will prefer it. Merely being exposed to something makes us more positive towards it.”[2] Hamilton offers the following scenario:

Researchers once gathered a group of subjects and developed two different photos of those people’s faces; one photo showed what their faced looked like to everyone else in the world, and the other was the mirror image, the face that person saw in the mirror.

When asked which photo they preferred, as predicted by the mere exposure effect, the subjects preferred the photos that resembled their mirror images and their friends and loved ones preferred the photos that hadn’t been reversed. We like our mirror image face more than we like our real face because it’s the one we’ve seen most often.

What this means for new ideas is this: we will prefer the status quo not because it’s better or more helpful but merely because it’s familiar.[3]

Loss Aversion

The second principle that drastically affects our capacity to on-board new ideas is loss aversion: “Loss aversion means that people’s tendency to want to avoid loss is stronger than their desire to make gains.”[4]

By way of illustrating the loss aversion principle, imagine that “you are offered a gamble on the toss of a coin. If the coin shows tails, you lose $100. If the coin shows heads, you win $150. Is this gamble attractive? Would you accept it?”[5] Hamilton explains the dynamic:

Most people don’t like this bet and wouldn’t take it. To make the choice you need to weigh how you would feel about winning $150 against how you would feel if you lost $100. Overall the deal is positive, by which I mean there’s a good chance that you’ll win more money than you’ll lose. And yet still the gamble probably isn’t that attractive. For most people the fear of losing $100 is greater and more intense than the hope and possibility that you’ll win $150. Kahneman concludes that “losses loom larger than gains.” We want to not lose more than we want to win. This is loss aversion.

And so when we hear new ideas, no matter how good the idea is we’ll be thinking much more about what we’ll be losing if we implement it than about what we’ll be gaining. Even if we’ll gain more than we lose.[6]

Status Quo = Mere Exposure + Loss Aversion

Hamilton brilliantly explains how the mere exposure principle plus loss aversion typically results in a strong predisposition towards the status quo, also known by one of our favorite church axioms, “we’ve always done it this way”:

When you combine the mere exposure effect with loss aversion, the result is an incredibly strong bias towards the status quote. The status quo emits a powerful conserving force. The status quo is so familiar that we know exactly how it works – we know what isn’t good about it, what questions it raises, and what we’ll lose if we move away from it. If we think about moving away from the status quo and embracing a new idea we can almost touch and taste what we’ll lose. Gains from a new idea, on the other hand, are imaginary because they exist only in the future. We distrust the unfamiliar. New ideas aren’t as clear as old ideas. Lots of factors and outcomes are unknown.

And so we stick with what we know.

We like to think that we carefully weigh the merits of new ideas and judge them objectively and without bias. But the truth is that when it comes to assessing new ideas we’re deeply irrational.[7]

Protect the Ugly Baby

If a strong disposition towards the status quo exists within churches, based upon the mere exposure principle and loss aversion, how do new ideas begin to thrive that helps the church take its next flourishing step? First, leaders need to recognize that ideas are born ugly:

The fact that ideas are born ugly is hard to accept. We often have the notion that great ideas are birth fully formed, glittering in all their glory. But that kind of idea is extremely rare. Most ideas are born disproportionate and lanky. They aren’t fully formed and often they’re either missing key components or have too much of one thing over another. They need to grow and be refined….

When you drive a baby home from the hospital you don’t just throw him or her on the back seat of the car. You don’t even just put a seatbelt on them. No, you strap them into a giant reinforced capsule that is itself strapped and bolted into the car.

Why? Because they’re fragile and they need protection. New ideas are the same. They’re fragile and easily destroyed. They barely exist and can be eroded into nothing with only a few pointed questions or scathing comments….

You and your team, therefore, need to be patient with new ideas. Don’t overwhelm them with questions. Delay judgment. Allow the idea time to percolate in your mind and in the minds of your team members. Don’t criticize it too early….

When people begin criticizing the idea or asking too many detail-oriented questions, you need to be the one to jump in to protect the idea – even if you’re not yet convinced that the idea is a good one. It’s your responsibility to protect new ideas and allow them the space they need to grow and develop. This doesn’t mean you need to approve and implement every idea….It means you lead the way in asking questions that foster rather than hinder the idea’s development.[8]

Hamilton insists that the initial questions of a new idea need to steer clear of the details of its implementation. Instead, be curious about novel and unique ideas with questions like:

1.     Can you tell me some more about where this idea came from?

2.     What problem is currently being overlooked that you think this new idea will solve for us?

3.     How is this idea different from [this other thing that is similar that we already do]?

4.     What do you think are the next steps for exploring and developing this idea?[9]

New Ideas Need Protective Friends

Knowing that “the system is geared to favour the incumbent” means that leaders recognize that ideas are born ugly.[10] The second practice that leaders need to implement towards overcoming the irrational bias towards the status quo is to recognize that new ideas need protective friends. Good leaders protect new ideas from withering attacks:

Like any newborn, new ideas are fragile and new protection. Holding a newborn baby is risky business. You need to get yourself ready, sit down in the chair, make sure you’re stable. Carefully place your arms in the baby-holding position in anticipation of the transfer. Be careful to support the neck.[11]

You must protect the ugly baby from the inevitable all-out assault simply because it’s a new idea.

In the animated movie Ratatouille, the nemesis of the hero is the food critic Anton Ego. Towards the end of the movie, the nemesis of the story has an awakening. His awakening has to do with how easy it is to be a professional critic. (Church: are you paying attention?!) It is safer to be a critic. It is safer to promote the status quo. It is safer to repeat the church mantras: this is the way it’s always been done. This is the way things are around here. Anton Ego recognizes that while it is safer, easier, and more customary to be a critic, his transformation and awakening occurs when he finally comprehends – in a published review of the hero’s new recipe – how beautiful and arresting and transformative new ideas can be:

In many ways, the work of the critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.[12]

There you have it via the insights of Pixar! Ideas are born ugly. Will you be a leader who is, at least initially, a protective friend of new ideas? You might just end up helping your church take its next flourishing step.

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• Leadership Culture Principle #1 is called The “No They” Policy and can be found here as a blogpost or downloaded as a PDF.

• Leadership Culture Principle #2: The Ministry of Asking the Person to Go Directly to the Source.

• Leadership Culture Principle #3: All the Leaders Own the Decision: Public Fans, Private Criticism.

• Leadership Culture Principle #5 is entitled Email Matters: 15 Questions | How Shall we Utilize Email in our Leadership Culture to the Glory of God? and can be found here as a blogpost or downloaded as a PDF.

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[1] Craig Hamilton, Wisdom in Leadership: The How and the Why of Leading the People You Serve, pp. 197, italics added.

[2] Ibid., 198.

[3] Ibid., 198.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Daniel Dakhneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, pp. 283, as cited by Hamilton, pp. 198-99.

[6] Craig Hamilton, Wisdom in Leadership, pp. 199.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid, 200-1.

[9] Ibid, 201.

[10] Ibid, 202.

[11] Ibid, 200.

[12] As cited by Hamilton, 202.