Failure? Can we say that word? Isn’t it anti-spiritual to talk of failure when we speak about the things of God? While we may not come right out and say that, we think it! A few years ago I was with a group of pastors talking about how we should handle failure as leaders. After the session was over, one of the pastors cornered me and was quite furious that I could ever claim something of God could fail. "After all", he said, "God would never ask us to do something and then allow us to fail. If you fail, it's because you were acting against God, not with him." I asked, "What if God called us to fail so he could prepare us for te next phase of his plan for our life? What if God knew that we would have to be humbled by failure before we would be useful?" Needless-to-say, the pastor wanted nothing to do with it.
Christian leaders, and lay people alike, are notorious for using phrases and words to candy-coat something that didn’t work out well. Like; “It wasn't meant to be." Or better yet, we bring God into the picture and say, "It must not have been God's timing." That's an easy way out isn't it. Let's blame God. It seems to me that in our attempt to super-spiritualize or rename a flat out failure, we miss the lessons that we might have learned through simply admitting, “We failed!”
Why do we fight so hard to keep from admitting failure? I believe that we have formed a foolish idea in our minds that failure is an embarasment to God and so we have to save him from that possibility. The question you have to ask this: What would be worse, trying and failing, or never trying at all? What do you think God would celebrate? A quick look at parable of the talents will give us the answer. God never called us to be successful, rather He called us to be obedient. That great theologian, Woody Allen said, “If your not failing every now and again, it’s a sure sign you are not trying anything very innovative.”
Why all this talk about failure? Because anyone serious about leading a church towards growth, innovation and passionate outreach will fail from time to time. You will flat out miss the mark. Leadeing a church requires risk and risk involves the possibility of failure. Trying anything for the sake of God involves the possibility of failure. That is why so many leaders avoid trying anything new. Their egos/self-image is so wrapped up in success that they are afraid to attempt anything new for God.
Failure can become the church leaders greatest friend, if they leverage their failure. It is in failure that you learn the greatest lessons. Robert F. Kennedy once said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” We tend to think that failure is to be avoided at all costs, but often our greatest success is birthed through our failure. If you are never failing, you are probably not achieving anything of any great value either.