Where are the failures?

I don't know about you but I learn most from my failures.  I remember as a teen spending hours and hours and hours trying to get the right bend on a free kick so that it would sail over the wall and nestle in the top corner.  I failed thousands of times, but over time each failure led to an adjustment and gradual improvement, though I've now regressed dramatically.  Failure teaches us.  It is not the enemy it is our friend.

But I wonder if we've lost that perspective.  I think in the church in the UK we are afraid of failure and that it is paralysing us.  Have you ever been to a church planting seminar where the speaker had tried to plant a church but it hadn't worked and yet he was humble enough to share the lessons he had learnt so that you didn't repeat it.  Or where the organisers thought it was vital we heard that story so that we could learn.  Or do we hide failure like a dirty secret we don't want to get out?  When was the last time you read a book or saw a blog post on how bad an evangelistic event was, or how a church had gradually plateaued and then declined before closing its doors due to a loss of outward looking evangelism.

We simply aren't very good at sharing our failures.  And yet everywhere else in life we learn so much from them.  Why is that?  As Christians the gospel liberates us to try because our standing and status is not dependent on our achievements but on Christ's.  But the fear of failing produces paralysis, it's mantra is "I can't!  We can't!  It might not work!"  Or "We came, we saw, we failed, we must keep quiet about it."  But there is so much to learn from our failures.

One of the things I love about Grace Church is that the church families grip on, and grasp of, grace is big enough that they are prepare to try and fail.  We've tried all sorts of things; evening church in homes in two locations without children with discussion groups, an early evening church with children, currently an afternoon church with children in and involved.  Evangelistic events in pubs and various other places, Easter Egg hunts, Holiday Clubs, Easter Explorers, various forms of toddlers, Impromptu nativity's, a joint carol service with the school, a change of location for Sunday mornings.  What leads the church to be able to try even though failure is a very real possibility?  I'd love to think in part it's a trust in the leadership, but I think predominantly it's that we are prepared to try, fall, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, evaluate, learn and go again because we know we are not saved by our success, or condemned by our failure, God isn't shaking his head when we fail like a critical parent.  We want to risk, in fact I'd love to see us (especially me) risk more because the gospel must be heard and we are God's means of declaring it to those around us.

Lots of those things haven't worked, they have failed in terms of what we set out to do and so they are reviewed and learnt from and assigned to the archives labelled 'Lessons learnt'.  Others have worked for a period of time.  Some have worked well and been repeated, though with tweaks each time.  And we want to keep learning, so we rigorously review because failure is another lesson learnt about what works and what doesn't.  And grace liberates us to risk and even to fail and to share the lessons learnt with others.

How do you choose what type of ministry to do?

I've been reading Tim Keller's 'Every Good Endeavour' a really biblical, helpful, and thought provoking book on work which is well worth a read.  This morning, however, I read something in it which got me thinking not about work per se but about ministry trends in the UK.

"...many college students do not choose the work that naturally fits their abilities, talents, and capacities, but rather choose work that fits their limited imagination of how they can boost their own self image.  There were only three high-status kinds of jobs - those that paid well, those that directly worked on society's needs, and those that had the cool factor."

It made me think about why people choose the ministries they do in the UK, do we have cool ministries?  I can't help thinking we do, the previous 7 or so years have seen lots of conferences raising the profile of Church Planting and oddly enough lots of young men and women wanting to plant churches.  I am not knocking that, especially as someone who greatly benefitted from that in our preparation and planting 5 and a half years ago.  But I am wondering if in it being the 'cool' ministry it has led lots of people to value it more highly than other ministry, and whether it has become one of THE ministries to do.

Potentially that will have tragic consequences for the church in the UK especially as many pastors of established churches are nearer retirement than the start of their ministry.  Pastoral vacancies seem to be on the rise with many younger men wanting to plant churches.  Britain needs pastors more than it needs planters (and yes I do think there is a difference).

But the other interesting question concerns suitability to plant. If I am brutally honest the past 5 and a half years have been incredibly tough, (OK the first year was brilliantly exciting, but since then it has been slow, hard work).  Sleepless nights about finances (and that's with an incredibly generous and supportive sending church behind us), all the pastoral workload of an established church plus the extra of having young Christians who need nurturing and face very real immediate gospel issues in their lives, the discouragement of key people and leaders moving away leaving seemingly un-fillable holes, conflict which needs reconciliation, new relationships to build in a community which is suspicious of a new church, relationships to maintain with existing church leaders and networks and or a sending church and so on...

We normally hear of church plants who are flying, growing quickly, starting new ministries and so on.  But we need to balance that by hearing from plants where the work is hard and slow.  One of the most helpful things I ever heard was from a man who courageously shared the story of a church he had planted but which he then took the decision with the leaders to close for various godly reasons.  I can't help wondering if that would help some potential planters think carefully about whether planting is for them.

But we also need to change our value system, we need to value all ministry not just the coming fad.  We have a hierarchy of ministry that may go something like this in terms of priority, coolness, and perceived value:  1. Overseas mission, 2. Church Planting, 3. Ministry on estates (though this may be about to usurp 2), 4. Working for a para-church organisation, 5. "Normal" church ministry.

But the danger with that is that many young people and potential ministers will not choose the ministry that naturally fits their abilities, talents, giftings, and capacities, but rather choose the ministry that fits their limited imagination of how they can boost their own self image.  Where ministry is chosen because it has the cool factor.  We must redress the balance and value all ministry, thinking strategically about the need not just of new areas but of existing congregations and sustaining and developing the outreach they already have established.