Learning from Ministry Mistakes
A huge obstacle to transforming ministries is the fear of failure. Some failure is to be expected on the way to success. A congregation’s failures in ministry initiatives should not be a death sentence.
Our most eminent inventors will attest that their greatest contributions came after repeated failures.
Multicultural Ministry is particularly risky. Bonding can be difficult within families! Across cultures there are bound to be problems. Prepare to use failure to improve your ministry. People need to know that it is better to try new ideas and fail then to do nothing. Create an environment that embraces the risk of failure.
Unfortunately, in ministry, critics line the sidelines waiting for signs of failure. Some want to justify inaction with a ready “I told you so.” Although it is a harsh view, the reality is that some are waiting for small churches to fail to boost the assets of survivors. Congregations have significant incentive to avoid risking failure that may attract negative attention. Catch 22. Do nothing and wither. Do something and risk catastrophic resistance.
We’ve written in previous posts about the importance of preparing a congregation for Multicultural Ministry.
No matter how well prepared your people are, someone someday is going to say or do something that could be offensive to someone else — probably without realizing it. It may be a simple faux pas. It may come from a member who rarely attends. It may come from a visitor or a child.
No matter how thoroughly you plan, you are still likely to learn at the last minute that your best ideas won’t work for one reason or another for a cultural reason you never envisioned. That’s the nature of Multicultural Ministry. Be prepared for these moments.
Learn to manage failure. It can be a stepping stone to success.
Regular evaluation of your ministry is the key to avoiding problems and overcoming the glitches which will occur. Weekly evaluation is not too much and the evaluation session should be as soon after an event as possible. You want to build on your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. You also want to be prepared to identify opportunities that sometimes arise from the most unlikely places.
Acknowledge: Don’t sugar coat failure. Call it what it is.
Analyze: Figure out what went wrong.
Adjust: Shift gears, dramatically if necessary.
The first two are fairly easy steps — uncomfortable perhaps, but easy. Just don’t dwell on blame. Be as honest as possible without discouraging those who have worked hard. Honesty means that all involved in the ministry are subject to review. If you are to find answers to your ministry challenges, you must deal with the good information. Include as many as possible in your analysis. Don’t allow a few with vested interests to define problems. That is likely to result in hurtful finger-pointing.
The adjustments you make must match the analysis. If your best information indicates that your visitors and new members aren’t relating well to an individual involved (including the pastor), your adjustments must fix that problem. Mission is the goal. Personal pride must be put aside.
From Our Experience
Redeemer’s success with our East African Outreach failed at first. We hosted a few successful services. Soon interest began to wane and after about a year we discontinued the effort while we worked on another initiative.
The idea never died. Our East African members wanted to resurrect the effort. First we spent a couple of council meetings analyzing why things weren’t working. Brutal honesty was necessary.
We identified three major problems.
- The Swahili service was entirely separate from the English. Only a few existing members were aware of the outreach and the new people coming and going remained strangers. The entire church was not invested in the project.
- Our first attempt to reach the growing East African community involved working with a pastor who traveled 90 miles to lead worship once a month. Bad weather, illness, scheduling conflicts made consistency difficult.
- The project was adopted by one person in the congregation who was not East African and who worked independently. Neither the existing congregation nor the visitors knew how to contribute. Help was soon hard to come by.
The remedies were simple once we all agreed on what the problems were. We enlisted more members to help with the service in peripheral ways — fellowship, etc. We found two rostered, ordained pastors from Tanzania who lived nearby. We assigned leadership for the project to our East African members who enlisted help from others in the East African community. Within a few months the newcomers felt welcome and part of our community. A membership drive initiated by the first new members resulted in 49 joining our congregation. Within a few months, Swahili members suggested uniting the English and Swahili services.
Sadly, our denomination remembered the failure long after we had begun measuring success. This is something the church as a whole needs to address if they are going to ask congregations to invest in new initiatives. Make room for failure.