Failure is essential

Have you ever heard the saying “Failure is not an option”? People say this when they know that they must succeed at all costs. I often hear this is war movies where it is a matter of life or death, then failure really is not an option. Yet most of us fear failure even though we don’t live in a life or death world. Many people don’t begin something or try a new adventure if they think they might fail.

Recently I heard Craig Groeschel say that in ministry “Failure is not an option, it is essential”. Craig has found that many people don’t begin new ministries if they think they might fail. In his experience, failing in ministry teaches you about how to improve a ministry, so failure is his path to success. For example, it was only after trying rock concerts in their youth ministry did they realise that the Church shouldn’t do rock concerts, yet what they did learn was that young people are attracted and engaged by music. So now they include music in their regular youth nights.

This week I have been meeting with a number of Youth Ministers across the Diocese. The common link I have noticed is that all of them have grown so much in their understanding of ministry. Whilst I hope that every youth minister has a few successes to keep them in the game, I know that each one of these successful youth minters has made some mistakes. It is the failures that they have experienced that make them successful today.

For example, one of the youth minsters spoke to me this week about improving their youth group. The current youth group is version two and is so much better than version one. The difference between the two versions is the experience of the youth minister. The youth minster is more hungry for the version two group to work because of the mistakes they made with version one.

In your ministry what mistakes are you making? How can you learn from the mistakes you make in ministry? In looking at starting something new, remind your group that failure is not an option it is essential. Don’t chase failure, but don’t be scared to try something new.

Please leave a comment about how you have learnt from failure or mistakes in ministry.