Priorities

1. Clear Gospel

If we get this wrong, we might as well go home. Mere religiosity makes a lame hobby. 

Why is the gospel first on our list? Because it was first on Paul’s: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).

We never want to outgrow the wonder of God’s rescuing grace. The way to grow as Christians, after all, is not to move beyond the gospel; it is to move deeper into it. And what is this gospel? It is the thrilling news of what God has accomplished—through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son—to redeem and restore a lost world to himself. And the most amazing part is that anyone can get in on this. The gospel is the pulsing center of our life as a church, and its transforming power the basis of everything we do.

2. Biblical Preaching

There is a place for “topical” sermons, but the preaching at Hunsinger Lane Baptist will primarily be “expository.” This ancient approach seeks to expose God’s people to God’s Word, one passage at a time. Our commitment to expository sermons is more than a preference—it is a conviction. Why? Because we are convinced that it is the words of God, not the cool ideas or ingenuity of man, that truly transform lives. We don’t want to get in the way of God’s voice.

Whether they realize it or not, every human needs to hear the full range of what God has to say—from Genesis to Revelation, each part understood in context and applied to the heart. God’s Word, after all, is what brings spiritual life and growth to God’s people. Given that even inspired apostles felt constrained to preach “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), we won’t try to improve on that.

3. Meaningful Membership

Church membership isn’t just having your name on a roll; it’s a living-and-breathing web of relationships. It’s an eagerness to say, “I am my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper—and they are mine.” It’s a commitment to intentionally serve and help others, to take responsibility for their well-being. It’s a willingness to submit to the oversight of church leaders and to the care and accountability of fellow members. Membership isn’t primarily about opportunity but responsibility and accountability. In membership we lock arms with our fellow members as we march toward heaven together.

At HLBC, the elders aim, according to Scripture, to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). The members are responsible for the mission. If pastors are the supply line, members are the front line.

4. Deep Discipleship

Following Jesus is not a solo endeavor; it is a community effort. Nor is it confined to a weekly event; it is a lifestyle. At Hunsinger Lane Baptist we don’t want our growth in Christ to be haphazard and thin, but deliberate and deep. We want our members to flourish in their knowledge of Scripture and theology so that the roots of their faith grow deep and strong. None of this can be manufactured or microwaved. Only God’s Word, reverberating through the life of the covenant community, can bring forth the growth we desire.

Our discipleship infrastructure is designed to facilitate such growth and entails four “ranked” priorities for each member: (1) corporate worship; (2) corporate prayer; (3) home groups; and (4) other opportunities (e.g., Sunday school, men’s and women’s groups, events and retreats, one-on-one discipling relationships, etc.).

5. Joyful Complementarianism

Scripture teaches that both men and women bear God’s image and are essential and indispensable to the mission of the church. Gender and the unique design and callings God has given to men and women are part of the goodness of creation and displays the glory of God. In the church, God restricts the office and function of elder/pastor to qualified men (1 Tim. 2:12). This is why our elders and the formal, public teaching ministries of the church are led or overseen by elder-qualified men. 

We endeavor to be a church that rejoices in God’s good design for men and women and where men and women gladly embrace the unique and different roles that God has created them to fulfill in his infinitely wise, glorious, and beautiful design.

6. Passionate, Bible-Regulated Worship

Worship isn’t just the warm sensation one gets from music on a Sunday morning—it’s meant to characterize every aspect of our lives. At Hunsinger Lane Baptist we aim to worship King Jesus not only as we gather on Sundays, but as we scatter throughout the week.

What about our musical style, though? It will be neither wholly “traditional” nor solely “contemporary”—it will be blended, featuring both time-tested hymns and modern praise songs. We are committed to “congregational singing,” where the primary instrument is the church’s collective voice. The whole church, then, is the worship team. (We do have musicians, but their role is more to accompany than to perform.) This style, by the way, is not rooted in denominational tradition or mere preference; it’s simply our attempt to obey the command to sing not just upward to God, but also outward to one another (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).

So we will prioritize songs that are biblically true, theologically rich, musically beautiful, and “congregation-singable.” No matter what song we’re singing—whether it was penned a millennium ago or a year ago, whether it gives us “all the feels” or not—we want to worship passionately, singing with gusto as if Christ’s tomb really is vacant. (Because it is.)

7. Bold Prayer

There are few things more important that a church can do together than pray. In the New Testament, we see the priority not only of personal prayer, but also of corporate prayer. As the body gathers regularly to pray, we will have increasing ways to praise God for answers to prayer, to see him at work in our midst, to express care for each other, and to cry out for his help as we seek to be faithful gospel ministers in Louisville and around the world. 

To that end, we will fill our gatherings with prayer, and we set aside each Sunday evening for a corporate prayer meeting.

8. Constant Evangelism

At HLBC, we expect our members to increasingly know and be able to articulate the gospel, to develop gospel oriented relationships, and to seize opportunities to proclaim the good news to those around them. While we may have some evangelistic programs in and through the church, we emphasize the equipping and personal responsibility of our members to reach the lost. Our church schedule is pretty mere, and one of the reasons for its simplicity is to free up our members to weave their lives into the lives of those who need Jesus.

9. Urgent Mission

We pray that Hunsinger Lane Baptist will be a launching pad for the gospel—both to our neighborhoods and to the nations. We believe that the central mission of the church is found in Jesus’s “Great Commission”: to make disciples among the nations. We serve a missionary God who is gathering a people for his glory from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Our missions philosophy at Hunsinger Lane Baptist is to support strategic gospel workers with finances, prayers, encouragement, and care. Our hope is that many will be established in our midst to then go out from our body to proclaim the gospel and even help establish other healthy churches—heavenly outposts on earthly soil.

10. Deliberate Simplicity

If you are looking for a church with state-of-the-art production and a long menu of customized programs, that’s fine, but Hunsinger Lane Baptist may disappoint you. While we deeply value excellence, we will channel our best energies toward fostering culture a of evangelism, discipling, hospitality, and encouragement in our congregation—rather than an array of programs.

Church programs can be helpful, and we will benefit from some, but we believe they must be downstream from our primary priorities. We don’t want our church to turn into a spiritual drive-thru, a mere purveyor of religious goods and services. Nor do we want to endlessly subdivide the congregation along demographic lines. Our collective central identity, after all, is the whole gathering and not the small groupings. Because spiritual growth cannot be manufactured, we will orient congregational life around the ordinary means of grace, emphasizing personal initiative and life-on-life relationships—with corporate worship as both centerpiece and springboard for all we are and do.