Working through Failure
A Lesson the Church Is Failing to Learn
The Church’s approach to innovation:
Put the right person in charge and everything will be fine. The right person will come up with great new ideas. The people will execute the ideas flawlessly. The church will grow.
The right person will write a book. Hundreds of other churches will learn from the great success and the Church will grow and grow as a model for organizational success.
When it doesn’t work this way — and it rarely does — the blame game begins, it usually begins and ends with blaming the laity, because they have the least say in the organization we call Church. Least say. Most to lose.
Part of the problem is finding that right leader.
Often, the leader is chosen by the regional body for reasons known only to the regional body. Having a call for a pastor is more critical than having a successful ministry. Lots of square pegs get put into round holes for bureaucratic convenience.
This is rarely part of any evaluation when things aren’t working out. And so the same mistake can be made over and over with the blame game being the sole survivior.
The blame game does not lead to success.
Success, which we all long for,
is built upon failure.
We learn from failure. But not if we ante up for the blame game.
This is the biggest obstacle to church growth and it is exacerbated when regional bodies are failing. Shh! Some of them are, you know. They are the ones that are grabbing property.
When the regional body is failing, congregational failure becomes their salvation. Property values, if assumed well before true failure, can plug a deficit for several years.
Regional bodies have incentive to strangle innovation.
When regional bodies are failing, they quickly lose their sense of mission. Self-interest stops innovation in its tracks. The blame game kicks into full gear. The blame game is the fastest route to acquisition of assets.
- Lay leadership didn’t contribute.
- Lay leadership didn’t support the clergy.
- Demographics have changed. (Don’t they always?)
- Congregational members are resistant to change. (Who isn’t?)
It is a predictable litany usually chanted behind closed doors, where unopposed, it gains advantage.
Behind the criticism is the reality that a congregation’s failure will give the regional body a short-term boost.
This is tragic. The congregation might be on the verge of important self-discovery.
Many of the congregations that are on the verge of failure today, could teach us all something if innovation were fostered. Every innovator knows you have to work through the failures.
But the tragedy in the Church is deeper. There is a big cover up. The cover up is the use of the Resurrection story to justify failure and ugly behavior. Regional leaders would have us believe that is necessary for congregations to die in order for someone else to live. Christ died so that we might die?
We justify our failure to deliver the message of God’s love with the Resurrection story!
Absolute nonsense. Lazy nonsense. Theologic nonsense.
What we must do is examine every failure with brutal honesty. Why didn’t our good ideas work? What were the obstacles? Money is often the assumed obstacle, but sometimes that’s a convenient illusion.
How can we remove or overcome the obstacles? What is worth risking for revival?
If the list of requisites creates obstacles in our pioneering efforts, then that list must be examined.
Failure is something the Church must learn to work through if innovation is to result. Team work would help but is unlikely given the coveting of assets. (That’s why “thou shalt not covet” made the ten commandments twice).
Every congregational resource must be available for mission—not protected for the day the regional body decides the assets are theirs.
If that money is allocated only for tried but failing mission strategies, then it is being squandered.
Freeing congregational assets for experiments in mission is the only road to success. Are we strong enough to follow it? Or are we reserving our legacy money to pay today’s bills?