The Failure-Tolerant Leader by Robert Schnase
In tennis, players usually give their maximum effort on the first serve, knowing that if they fault on that one, they will have another opportunity. On the second serve, players usually take a more conservative approach to avoid getting a double fault. Imagine a tennis player who determines never to double fault on the serve. He or she will serve so carefully that the opponent gains all the advantages. Fear of making the mistake will cause the player to lob easy serves that can be returned with overwhelming power. Playing too conservatively and too predictably never succeeds.
In a similar way, the fear of failure causes pastors and leaders to err on the side of safety, predictability, and restraint. Fear of failure debilitates leaders. Fear blocks imagination. Permission-giving leaders have to overcome these fears to cultivate a culture of innovation and imagination. They must learn how to fail successfully.
Today congregations must take more risks in order to see fruitful results than congregations did in the past. Churches 50 years ago could remain strong, and even see growth, by offering one Sunday morning worship service with one style of music, good pastoral care, a youth ministry, and a solid administrative structure. The culture pushed people toward churches, and a passive stance worked. To be successful, churches just had to do what other churches were doing. For churches to experience above-average results today means taking risks that average congregations, which are mostly growing older and getting smaller, are unwilling to take. Leaders have to dare to be different. They have to dare to be wrong.
Fruitful congregations thrive with an abundance of ministries, open the doors to new ideas, and take initiative to start ministries. Yet, fruitful congregations can list dozens of programs and initiatives that didn’t work, failed to take root, lasted for a little while and faded away, or never bore the fruit that was hoped for. Growing congregations experience failure with more frequency than do declining congregations for the simple reason that they try more ideas than declining congregations. Even with all their failures, they never become failure averse in a way that keeps them from trying again. They remain resilient. They learn from their mistakes. They move on.
All congregations encounter obstacles, setbacks, and challenges. Perhaps a youth ministry declines precipitously. Maybe a staff member becomes ineffective or instills conflict. Some congregations avoid, deny, and ignore the challenge. They let it go unaddressed. Programs end. Ministry is diminished. People leave. The church’s capacity to reach people decreases. Worry wins. The ministry of Christ loses. The congregation fails to learn what it needs to learn, shrinks a little more, withdraws back into itself, and becomes a little smaller.
Other congregations face the same challenge, but they do so with a sense of resilience and purpose. The pastor consults other pastors who face a similar setback. Leaders visit with leaders from other churches. They invite the help of a consultant. They read and attend workshops on the topic. They learn about the roots of the challenge, and then they learn approaches to take. They make decisions and take action. They try. And they come out on the other side of the challenge as a stronger church, a learning church, a more confident church that is clearer about its mission and more committed to its future. The church grows. They fail successfully.
Jesus tells the story of the master who entrusts his servants with various quantities of talents while he is away. The servant who receives ten talents returns ten talents more to his master upon his return, and the servant who receives five returns five more than he’d been given. However, the servant who received one talent dug a hole and hid it for fear of losing it, and for this he faced his master’s disappointment. His fear numbed him into inaction.
Pastors and leaders have been entrusted with enormous responsibilities and with a mission given us in Christ. Leading requires humility and courage. Leading requires the humility to get out of the way, to relinquish control, to trust others, and to trust how God works through others. Leading also requires the audacity, boldness, resilience, and fearlessness to try and try again, even when faced with failure, setback, and resistance. There is always a next step, no matter how difficult the challenge or how intransigent the system, and the most important decision is always the next one.
Robert Schnase is bishop of the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church. This article is excerpted from his most recent book,Just Say Yes: Unleashing People for Ministry (Abingdon Press, 2015), and used by permission. The book is available at Cokesbury orAmazon.
Can New People Navigate Your Worship? by Jacob Armstrong
In a similar way, the fear of failure causes pastors and leaders to err on the side of safety, predictability, and restraint. Fear of failure debilitates leaders. Fear blocks imagination. Permission-giving leaders have to overcome these fears to cultivate a culture of innovation and imagination. They must learn how to fail successfully.
Today congregations must take more risks in order to see fruitful results than congregations did in the past. Churches 50 years ago could remain strong, and even see growth, by offering one Sunday morning worship service with one style of music, good pastoral care, a youth ministry, and a solid administrative structure. The culture pushed people toward churches, and a passive stance worked. To be successful, churches just had to do what other churches were doing. For churches to experience above-average results today means taking risks that average congregations, which are mostly growing older and getting smaller, are unwilling to take. Leaders have to dare to be different. They have to dare to be wrong.
Fruitful congregations thrive with an abundance of ministries, open the doors to new ideas, and take initiative to start ministries. Yet, fruitful congregations can list dozens of programs and initiatives that didn’t work, failed to take root, lasted for a little while and faded away, or never bore the fruit that was hoped for. Growing congregations experience failure with more frequency than do declining congregations for the simple reason that they try more ideas than declining congregations. Even with all their failures, they never become failure averse in a way that keeps them from trying again. They remain resilient. They learn from their mistakes. They move on.
All congregations encounter obstacles, setbacks, and challenges. Perhaps a youth ministry declines precipitously. Maybe a staff member becomes ineffective or instills conflict. Some congregations avoid, deny, and ignore the challenge. They let it go unaddressed. Programs end. Ministry is diminished. People leave. The church’s capacity to reach people decreases. Worry wins. The ministry of Christ loses. The congregation fails to learn what it needs to learn, shrinks a little more, withdraws back into itself, and becomes a little smaller.
Other congregations face the same challenge, but they do so with a sense of resilience and purpose. The pastor consults other pastors who face a similar setback. Leaders visit with leaders from other churches. They invite the help of a consultant. They read and attend workshops on the topic. They learn about the roots of the challenge, and then they learn approaches to take. They make decisions and take action. They try. And they come out on the other side of the challenge as a stronger church, a learning church, a more confident church that is clearer about its mission and more committed to its future. The church grows. They fail successfully.
Jesus tells the story of the master who entrusts his servants with various quantities of talents while he is away. The servant who receives ten talents returns ten talents more to his master upon his return, and the servant who receives five returns five more than he’d been given. However, the servant who received one talent dug a hole and hid it for fear of losing it, and for this he faced his master’s disappointment. His fear numbed him into inaction.
Pastors and leaders have been entrusted with enormous responsibilities and with a mission given us in Christ. Leading requires humility and courage. Leading requires the humility to get out of the way, to relinquish control, to trust others, and to trust how God works through others. Leading also requires the audacity, boldness, resilience, and fearlessness to try and try again, even when faced with failure, setback, and resistance. There is always a next step, no matter how difficult the challenge or how intransigent the system, and the most important decision is always the next one.
Robert Schnase is bishop of the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church. This article is excerpted from his most recent book,Just Say Yes: Unleashing People for Ministry (Abingdon Press, 2015), and used by permission. The book is available at Cokesbury orAmazon.
Can New People Navigate Your Worship? by Jacob Armstrong
Many churches have a way of doing things that doesn’t allow for new people to connect. Without even knowing it, we exclude those we truly want to reach. Let me illustrate. A guest arrives at a church that is new to her. She learned of the service times from the website. She is nervous. She almost talked herself out of coming five times. But something drew her to worship. She easily finds a parking place but isn’t quite clear where to enter the building. She follows another family in a door, and is greeted quickly by someone who hands her a folded piece of paper. She realizes quickly that she is early, really early. Later she will learn that the church had changed service times but neglected to make the change on the website. Everybody else arrives on time.
The first thing that happens in worship is the sharing of announcements. A lot of announcements. Sounds like a lot is going on, but it is hard for her to decipher what all the events are. The letters VBS mean nothing to her. She wonders why a rummage sale would be so important to a church. The next thing the person speaking (no idea who the person is) does is invite people to stand and “pass the peace.” She stands, but doesn’t know what to pass. A couple of kind people come and shake her hand, but then move on to someone else. She stands awkwardly as she hears others talking with their friends. They then sing a song. She realizes the numbers in the folded program refer to a number in the book in the pew. She stands to sing and feels some comfort as she hears the sounds of voices mixing together in song. After the song, another unidentified individual asks for “joys and concerns.” People begin sharing requests for prayer. She doesn’t know any of the folks being discussed, but everyone else seems to as they nod with knowing looks as each prayer request is lifted up and updated.
I’ll stop there. Many worship services have created a closed loop that is very hard to break through. Some persistent ones hang in there and eventually understand the lingo and the patterns. But for the church to adapt in a way that leads to life for more people, we must care enough to open the closed loop to let new people in. We must be willing to think about everything we do in worship through the eyes of the newcomer. It may mean giving up the passing of the peace because we realize this is not a time when guests feel more welcomed, but more isolated. It may mean finding other arenas where prayer requests can be shared and actually prayed over. It may mean sharing fewer announcements in worship and spending more time focusing on connecting people to God. In short, opening the closed loop demands intentionality.
Intentionality starts in preparation. Preparation for worship should take into mind what we know about our community. The question of intention is “why?” Why are we singing this song? Why are we having a children’s moment? Why are we making seven announcements? People who come for the first time and those who are returning for their 100th time appreciate the decisions made to include everyone in the worship of God. They may never notice it, but they will feel it. And they will return.
Jacob Armstrong is the founding pastor of Providence United Methodist Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. This article is adapted from his new book, The New Adapters: Shaping Ideas to Fit Your Congregation, published and used with permission by Abingdon Press, and available at Cokesbury and Amazon.
Connect
Quotable Leadership"
"Jesus would caution against criticizing the speck in teenagers’ faith before scrutinizing the log in our own (Matt. 7:5). If teenagers are members of the Church of Benign Whateverism, it is because we are too."[Kenda Creasy Dean]
Help Prevent Clergy Sexual Misconduct
Keeping Our Sacred Trust is an online course from the Lewis Center that has been used by nearly 1,900 clergy across multiple denominations. The course addresses the dynamics, motivations, and vulnerabilities that can lead to misconduct and the positive steps that can help prevent misconduct or the appearance of misconduct. The cost is only $49 and includes .5 CEU. Individuals may enroll online, or judicatories may set up group enrollment with group billing and discounts for groups of 250 or more. Learn more at keepingoursacredtrust.org, or contact Joe Arnold at(202) 885-8560 or jearnold@wesleyseminary.edu.
The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Helping a group improve something in which they are highly invested runs the risk of communicating unintended criticism or judgment. A question that may help is:
“How can we make this better?”
Want more Right Questions? Check out “Right Questions for Church Leaders, Volumes 1–3.”
Editors: Lovett H. Weems, Jr., and Ann A. Michel. Production: Carol Follett
Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary.
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW
The first thing that happens in worship is the sharing of announcements. A lot of announcements. Sounds like a lot is going on, but it is hard for her to decipher what all the events are. The letters VBS mean nothing to her. She wonders why a rummage sale would be so important to a church. The next thing the person speaking (no idea who the person is) does is invite people to stand and “pass the peace.” She stands, but doesn’t know what to pass. A couple of kind people come and shake her hand, but then move on to someone else. She stands awkwardly as she hears others talking with their friends. They then sing a song. She realizes the numbers in the folded program refer to a number in the book in the pew. She stands to sing and feels some comfort as she hears the sounds of voices mixing together in song. After the song, another unidentified individual asks for “joys and concerns.” People begin sharing requests for prayer. She doesn’t know any of the folks being discussed, but everyone else seems to as they nod with knowing looks as each prayer request is lifted up and updated.
I’ll stop there. Many worship services have created a closed loop that is very hard to break through. Some persistent ones hang in there and eventually understand the lingo and the patterns. But for the church to adapt in a way that leads to life for more people, we must care enough to open the closed loop to let new people in. We must be willing to think about everything we do in worship through the eyes of the newcomer. It may mean giving up the passing of the peace because we realize this is not a time when guests feel more welcomed, but more isolated. It may mean finding other arenas where prayer requests can be shared and actually prayed over. It may mean sharing fewer announcements in worship and spending more time focusing on connecting people to God. In short, opening the closed loop demands intentionality.
Intentionality starts in preparation. Preparation for worship should take into mind what we know about our community. The question of intention is “why?” Why are we singing this song? Why are we having a children’s moment? Why are we making seven announcements? People who come for the first time and those who are returning for their 100th time appreciate the decisions made to include everyone in the worship of God. They may never notice it, but they will feel it. And they will return.
Jacob Armstrong is the founding pastor of Providence United Methodist Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. This article is adapted from his new book, The New Adapters: Shaping Ideas to Fit Your Congregation, published and used with permission by Abingdon Press, and available at Cokesbury and Amazon.
Connect
Quotable Leadership"
"Jesus would caution against criticizing the speck in teenagers’ faith before scrutinizing the log in our own (Matt. 7:5). If teenagers are members of the Church of Benign Whateverism, it is because we are too."[Kenda Creasy Dean]
Help Prevent Clergy Sexual Misconduct
Keeping Our Sacred Trust is an online course from the Lewis Center that has been used by nearly 1,900 clergy across multiple denominations. The course addresses the dynamics, motivations, and vulnerabilities that can lead to misconduct and the positive steps that can help prevent misconduct or the appearance of misconduct. The cost is only $49 and includes .5 CEU. Individuals may enroll online, or judicatories may set up group enrollment with group billing and discounts for groups of 250 or more. Learn more at keepingoursacredtrust.org, or contact Joe Arnold at(202) 885-8560 or jearnold@wesleyseminary.edu.
The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Helping a group improve something in which they are highly invested runs the risk of communicating unintended criticism or judgment. A question that may help is:
“How can we make this better?”
Want more Right Questions? Check out “Right Questions for Church Leaders, Volumes 1–3.”
Editors: Lovett H. Weems, Jr., and Ann A. Michel. Production: Carol Follett
Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary.
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20016 United States
lewiscenter@wesleyseminary.edu
lewiscenter@wesleyseminary.edu |
Lewis Center for Church Leadership
lewiscenter@wesleyseminary.edu |
Lewis Center for Church Leadership
Wesley Theological Seminary
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20016 United States
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