FAILURE is not the end, nor is it final. It is often the gateway to success and achievement.
Jonny and I decided to talk about failure with you this week. We are moving quickly to the end of the calendar year, and our minds move toward things past and opportunities ahead. Sometimes after we have run through a string of tough years, experienced some failure, and gotten discouraged, we decide to play it safe. Sometimes failure has stung us so sharply that we decide to stop trying new things. We draw ourselves in close, hedge our bets, don't take chances, and lay low, doing only what is necessary to survive. (of course I have never done this!) That's when we are at the greatest risk of not living! That is when we should be the most scared! As pastors of smaller churches, 200churches, our leadership is so critical, and if we give up trying, afraid of or jaded by failure, who is going to do it? Really, our churches need our leadership. They need our faith to be strong - in THE ONE who alone can help us. They need our vision to be clear. They need our courage to be inspiring. They need us to believe in them. They need us to take risks. They need our permission, even encouragement - to fail! They need our praise when they fail, for simply trying - having the guts to stick their neck out and do something risky and maybe even scary for the Kingdom of God and for our Savior. Failure is almost never fatal or final, but again, a path to accomplishment. We really want to LIVE. We don't want to just mark time. Have we failed? Absolutely, just like you! But we are going to come out to the batter's box swinging like wild monkeys. You can't give up, stop trying, and pack it in. You, Jonny, and I just might be one or two more failures away from a big ministry breakthrough. For the big accomplishments, sometimes you have to be tough enough to handles some major failures without giving up, packing it in, and walking away. Are you? If you have been playing it safe, laying back, doing just enough to get by - we hope this episode encourages you. We hope it challenges you to move forward, to take a risk, to at least try again - try something new. Go for it Baby - there's a new year coming! And we have fantastic opportunities ahead of us! “Why are you pastoring a small church?” How often have you received that question? Probably not many times, if at all. And the reason you haven’t is that people are kinder than that. They believe that the answer shines a negative light on you, so they would not set you up with a question like that. Have you ever asked yourself that question, Pastor? Perhaps you haven’t for the same reason most people wouldn’t ask you. Maybe you believe the answer, truth be told, would not be complimentary to you. So you avoid it, you don’t think about that question, or others like it:
You might think that the answers to those questions are as follows:
We are going to talk this week, on episode 73 of the 200churches Podcast, to Karl Vaters from NewSmallChurch.com about an article he wrote titled: The Surprising Reason 80% of Churches Will Never Break the 200 Barrier. Karl has a great take on this, but admittedly one that not everyone will agree with. We will engage Karl on the gridiron of ideas, of motivation, and of thinking that will either propel us in ministry, or restrain us from successful ministry. In this week’s episode we are going to delve into some touchy, sensitive areas for us pastors. Areas that are sometimes too close for comfort. But hey, we all think about these things! We all, as small church pastors, have to deal with the doubts and discouragements, the fears and the frustrations of not seeing continual upward motion. So we are going to talk turkey with a friend named Karl! It will be a good episode, and if we have anything to do with it, an encouraging episode! ONE MORE THING Now, as Columbo used to say, “Uh, just one more thing…” Just think about this – when us pastors are thinking about the size of our churches, concerned about how much others like us, or whether or not we will be able to pull off a multisite in the next two years – what do you think the majority of our people are thinking about? Yeah, that’s right… NOT that! They’re living their lives, probably loving their church and pastor, and just trying to live for Jesus. So the next time we get a little too introspective about our ministry, let’s not forget about the people we shepherd, and how much they need our love, support, encouragement, and spiritual care and feeding. The best way to get out of a slump sometimes is simply to engage people, serving them, loving them, and meeting their needs. It can be really simple, like what my father once said to me, “Jeffrey, the best antidote for inaction is… action! Now get moving!” Yeah. Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks Dad! We will catch up with YOU on Wednesday! Have a wonderful week. Years ago I had a secret. A secret so shameful, that I could not tell anyone. At the time, it just wasn’t done. It was a secret that wasn’t spoken about at dinner parties, and a problem you were expected to solve on your own. I had carried the secret for years, and it was making me sick. DO YOU HAVE A SECRET?
Pastor, do you have a secret you wish you didn’t have? Is it one that you don’t want anyone else to ever discover? Are you getting tired of hiding this part of you, of masking over the pain and the shame? Is it a secret that only you and your husband or wife know about? Or, maybe, they don’t even know? Is your secret making you sick? One of the secret weapons against secrets is also one of the secret weapons against sin. That weapon is… the light of day! Your secret only has power because it’s a secret. As long as it’s a secret, it has control over you. Once you shine the light of day on it, it loses its power and hold on you. Once you tell your secret to another person, you share the burden of it, and it begins its descent into irrelevancy. God does not want us pastors to carry secrets. They lead to shame, guilt, lies, holding our cards close to our vest, etc. God doesn’t want us doing ministry alone, and he certainly doesn’t want us carrying our burdens, our secrets, alone. Maybe it’s time for you to come clean, to share your secret with a trusted friend or mentor. Maybe you need to share the burden of it with another, and to get help. When you tell your secret, it’s like a new car immediately after you drive it off the show room floor, it’s drops in value big time! A shared secret loses its teeth, and releases its bite on you. BACK TO MY SECRET... Back to that secret I had years ago. Dear God. I carried that thing around, with my wife’s help, for years. We sweat over it, prayed about it, tried our hardest to fix it, and did make some progress. In fact, we made a good deal of progress. But we bore it in silence, and in secret, hoping no one would find out. If they did, they would think less of us, perhaps consider us unworthy of ministry. When it was time for us to move to a new ministry, I decided I would open up and let our new church leaders know up front what my situation was. I was almost sick over it, no, I was sick over it! I wasn’t sure they would want me. I’ll never forget the call. It was a special call I made before I came to candidate. I was honest and open. I shared my secret. To my shock, and delight, it was a nonstarter. “Is that all you got?” they said. I was floored, and felt a ton of weight being lifted off my shoulders. “Has it been difficult?” they asked. “Yes” I said. “Then good, we want a pastor who has been through the ringer and knows what it’s like. We want a pastor who has crashed and knows what it means to get up and keep going. We’re on your side, we’re in this together.” After we hung up, I sat there in my van, staring at my cell phone, weeping. This is what grace is. I finally experienced it. Grace. Love. Acceptance. Jesus. This is the body of Christ. What was my secret, you ask? I’ll never tell! LOL. You see, you don’t have to tell everybody your secret for your burden to be lifted. You just have to tell the right person or persons. Paul said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” James said, “confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed.” If I told you, you would say, “oh yeah, that” and move on to the next thing. No big deal. But it was huge to me, because I had no one to help me carry it. What secret are you carrying? Can I scream it? Here I go – FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, BARE YOUR BURDEN! TELL SOMEONE! SHARE YOUR SECRET! And watch it lose its power, and feel the weight lifted off your shoulders. Then understand what Jesus meant about finding “rest for your soul.” OUR GIFT TO YOU This Wednesday, on the 200churches Podcast, episode 64, we talk with John Lynch about our pastoral health. We talk to him about what it’s like to be honest with someone else, nothing hidden. If you have secrets that are making you sick, don’t miss this episode. We love you Pastor, and we want to bring hope and encouragement to you this week. So, today, this one’s for you! For all the men and women out there pastoring small churches – we love you! You bear the burdens of others, carry the water for the ministry, and often go un-thanked and unnoticed. So from Jeff and Jonny today – THANK YOU! Hey, we noticed. We’re two of you! We know. It’s a new week. If you need Wednesday’s episode – we offer it to you as our gift of encouragement and support. Happy Monday. Now, go get ‘em! This week on the podcast, episode 52, I (Jeff) said: “Most people are not willing to experience the number of failures necessary to achieve success.” That is true. No real success comes without failure. The bigger the success, the more failures will be necessary to achieve it. It is said that Thomas Edison was asked, when trying to invent the light bulb, if he thought himself a failure because he had not achieved it yet. Edison simply replied negatively, and said that he now knew over 9,000 different substances that would not work as a filament. After trying more than 10,000 substances, he finally lit upon (no pun intended) the right one, and the rest is history. Are YOU willing to experience the number of failures necessary for YOU to achieve success? Don’t give up. And, if you must, don’t give up too quickly! In Edison’s case, many failures made light work!
On this week’s podcast we talked about failure, and how we are learning to embrace it as a necessary step toward success. Today I want to encourage you, as a small church pastor, to not give up too quickly. In other words, do not concede failure until absolutely necessary! Eight years ago I conceded failure on a ministry team much too quickly. I was leading a “Vision Team” to determine what the vision of our church would be for the coming years. We had spent several months and finally came up with a vision statement, membership class material to teach it, and posters, icons, and artwork to communicate it. Our Vision Team of eight people then met with both of our church boards plus a few extra leaders, about twenty-five people in all, to share what we had accomplished. Almost out of the gate one of the people began to question even the need for what we had done. Then one more voiced his opposition to the artwork and logos, saying he thought the primary colors too juvenile. I unwisely allowed these two people to tank the presentation. Inwardly I conceded failure almost immediately. Seeing no way to bridge the gap between these two vocal people, the silence of the others, and the disappointment of the Vision Team, I began to fall back into a defensive position, then into a pattern of retreat. Just a few questions of concern and statements of opposition brought all our work to a halt. I shelved the material for a year, and then quietly began to use the membership material and talk about the vision statement. But it took another six years before we realized that the vision statement we had crafted had actually become reality in our church. Not because we promoted and sold it, but because we all actually just believed it and lived it – it became the reality in our church. But, the Vision Team lost steam in less than a year, and stopped meeting altogether. What more could we have done together, achieved together, if I had not conceded so quickly and called it a failure? We will never know. I failed by conceding failure when I likely did not need to do so. You might be wondering - what was that vision statement we crafted? It was this: AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD & OTHERS 24/7. That is the reality of our church today. We are living those authentic relationships, first with God, and then with each other, and not just on Sunday, but seven days a week. We live and we learn, right? Or, as John Maxwell wrote, “sometimes you win, sometimes you lo… learn!” Well I learned. And I am better for it. Here are six things I learned from that experience: 1. Commit your work to the LORD, and ask him for help in your ministry plans. 2. Be prepared to receive opposition to anything significant that you propose. 3. Expect to have to answer a lot of questions, so anticipate those questions. 4. Write down those questions and the answers you will give. 5. Believe in yourself and your ideas. 6. Believe in your team and the results of your hard work and planning. What are you working on right now? What will you propose to your leadership team or board in the coming weeks or months? If it’s worth doing, it’s worth turning over every stone and not conceding failure until it is absolutely clear that you must. And then when you do fail, learn from it, claim victory, and say “I am one failure closer to success!”
Again, welcome to 2014 and the second year of the 200churches Podcast. Can we say it?? We've learned so much from sharing this podcast with you! We have grown in our appreciation and understanding of what it means to be pastors of a 200church.
We had no idea the people we would get to know - YOU! You all have enriched our lives and grown us as pastors, friends, and leaders. We hope to continue building you up as pastors and shepherds of small churches, pastors who are often forgotten and undervalued as you serve in smaller ministries loving and shepherding God's people. In today's Episode 52, we share with you three lessons we are learning as we enter the new year. These three lessons are basic, so basic that we often overlook or forget them. If you lean into these lessons with us, your leadership in your 200church will grow and your church's health will improve. We are going to give you the outline to this episode, and then provide you the links to the resources we reference at the bottom of this post. TODAY'S EPISODE OUTLINE: We are focusing on three lessons to lean into as we start 2014. They are - 1. Getting over our fear of failure. Most people are unwilling to experience the number of failures necessary for success. If we do not try, we will never fail, and for some of us, that's our strategy for success - to never fail. Unfortunately, if we never try, and never fail, we will also never succeed. Is your church small because it has simply reached its Kingdom potential, or, is your church small because you're afraid to fail. Just a thought... -Moses failed -Peter failed -from a human perspective, even Jesus' projects failed - Judas betrayed him, the disciples forsook him, and he was killed on a cross. Perhaps we need a different perspective on failure. Sometimes a failure can accomplish God's will - you think? 2. Prayer. We need God. Our dependence on God is revealed through our time of prayer and communion with Him. How are you doing spending time with your Father, your Savior, and your Comforter? 3. FOCUS on the people you have. This point is, as they say, worth the admission price! You just have to hear what we say about this... LINKS: Two great books about handling failure: Failing Forward by John C Maxwell **Phenomenal Kindle price of $2.99 at the time of this post!! Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lo... Learn! by John C. Maxwell Pictures of the books at the bottom of this post are also links to purchase them on Amazon - we are not affiliates and get no kick-back. They are simply GREAT books! Please give us your input: Please email either Jeff or Jonny and share with them a topic you think would be good for us to discuss. Also, feel free to share a person you think we should have on as a guest. Our goal is to provide guests and content that encourage and equip you as small church pastors. We have some exciting guests lined up in the coming months. Jeff and Jonny have a little friendly competition going as for who will receive the most emails. You can email either one of them with your suggestions, their email links are below: jeff@200churches.com jonny@200churches.com :) |
Welcome to the 200churches blog! We have hundreds of posts covering every issue imaginable. So pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and stay awhile.
|