Churches Need to Find a Friend in Failure

Never truer words:

Congregations need to get comfortable with failure. Any group of people who claim to follow an executed messiah shouldn’t be so squeamish about failing. The whole point of Easter is that God can tease life from the clutches of death. You should expect to make decisions that don’t pan out the way you want them to pan out. Congregations that are growing (and I’m not speaking necessarily about numbers here) aren’t congregations that get every decision right; they’re the ones that see mistakes as an opportunity to learn. Failing is part of the process of growing. Doing nothing for fear of doing the wrong thing is unacceptable. Making decisions based on a congregational culture that existed a generation ago is a sure path to failure. Failure in the service of moving forward toward mission is helpful. Failure in the service of placating the past is death.