1. Make Jesus and the Gospel the Top Priority

2. Lead the Church in Authentic Worship

3. Cultivate a Warm Culture for Unbelievers and Guests

We lost the insider culture.

It can involve everything from serving coffee to teaching the church how to expect guests and unbelievers. This development is about losing the “insider feel,” the club-ish feel—the verbiage and the behaviors that make outsiders feel exceedingly “outside.”

We lost the museum culture.

Emmanuel is not a museum; it is a hospital for hurting people—a place of warmth, generosity, and joy. Jesus was hospitable, and we believe His church should be too.

Develop a “Come and see” culture.

Everybody knows someone to whom they can say, “Come and see!”

4. Provide Gospel-Shaped Team Leadership

The gospel constructs a leadership style.

The gospel shapes a Jesus-like leadership style—characterized by security, humility, grace, truth, strength, and tenderness.

A wounded church is often a skeptical church (for good reason).

It may be discouraging at first to enter a culture of distrust, but it’s likely from past wounds and fear. It isn’t personal. God’s wounded sheep need a biblical culture of leadership.

Learn to lead like Jesus.

Every day ask God to show you what it looks like to lead like Jesus and how the gospel transforms and informs leadership in counterintuitive ways. The gospel doesn’t allow us to merely emulate corporate leadership models, but neither does it allow us to be passive or disengaged. The gospel forbids us to lord over God’s people (to dominate them with personal authority), but it also calls us to lead His people to live under Jesus’ authority.

Learn to lead with a team culture.

Lead well, lead humbly, and lead as a team for the health of God’s people. Desire leadership that is clearly leading, but also clearly accountable and clearly not authoritarian. Desire to share the leadership and to train more leaders.

5. Choose to Follow Jesus, Regardless of the Cost

Jesus isn’t fearful of skeptics and scorners.

Do not try to please outside spectators or examiners, but rather give your hearts to gospel ministry, focused on pleasing Jesus alone.

Joyful new believers beautifully overpower outside critics.

The anticipation of who will be saved this week should drive us forward—eyes on Jesus, hearts toward gospel ministry.

There’s a relational cost (and benefit) to following Jesus.

To preserve your joy and emotional health, release concern over the false narratives of outside observers and “drive-by shooters.” Bury your heart in the hands of Jesus and press forward in the grip of His grace.

Build your identity on the freedom of obedience to Jesus.

Seek daily to grow in making your obedience to Jesus your deepest identity. This should be the lifeblood, the sustaining energy of our hearts and lives.