Prospective Christian leader, are you scared of failure?

When did it become unacceptable for leaders to fail? I don't mean in the category of moral failure, but rather being responsible for a leadership decision that frankly didn't work or, in hindsight, was a bad call.

The much-documented crisis in so few people choosing to train for ministry positions is complex, but my conversation with many who considered the path into Christian leadership but chose not to pursue it often was explained as a fear of being overwhelmed by criticism. It seems to me that the fear of failure in our culture has grown exponentially – and to the detriment of Christian leadership – precisely because it has become such a taboo.

I’m all for being a gospel-pirate and pillaging ruthlessly the common grace wisdom of the secular world to scavenge the best bits for the benefit of the church, but it has to be robustly filtered through gospel values.

'Growth'

However, an area that we have been guilty of sucking on the exhaust pipe of culture without discernment is imbibing the idea that our local church must always be tracking in the direction of growth. The rotating door of football managers is the most caricatured picture of this success obsession that drives our culture – but churches, in contrast, should have a greater tolerance for difficult seasons.

Yet it is easy for church elderships to become more akin to panicked shareholders concerned that the congregation’s patronage of service and financial investment is not returning the expected dividend.

Elderships or leadership teams should have the capacity to absorb a range of disappointments from well-meaning but unsuccessful ministry endeavours: from a poorly attended community fair to a new seeker course that sees no additions into congregational life.

Yet, too easily, such disappointments can lead to churches becoming entirely risk-averse, rather than utilising their learnings from the “school-of-loss” to risk again but with the necessary tweaks.

Two-fold fallout

The fall-out of this failure to give permission to, for want of a better phrase, “fail”, is two-fold.

Firstly, within leadership teams and congregations, such an attitude bakes in a subtle belief that all risk is in the category of “poor stewardship”. Such a posture atrophies the church's muscle for making big or small changes.

The problem with the phrase “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, is that the speaker always assumes that they would notice when something in church is broken, but sadly, whether it's a procedure or cultural issue, these things sit deep within our blind spots, like an intermittent warning light that the driver has learned to ignore because the car still drives.

The second consequence of churches having a sensitive allergy to failure is that it creates an environment where the “ultimate failure” (dead or ineffective churches) is likely to occur.

Leaders who know that key decisions on prioritising resources and focus will be met with a fight at the start of the process and indelible criticism if the results aren't quickly forthcoming, are likely – under the general burden of ministry – to play it safe and do nothing.

Among the leaders I coach, I have often been surprised by the number who resignedly use the phrase “best not to rock the boat”, as a justification for not making the changes they know will benefit the church – as if a “smooth crossing” is the heart of faithful leadership.

Exercising our freedom in Christ

Continuing with the nautical metaphor, I must confess that amid the challenges of ministry, I am tempted to exchange my lifeboat-steering skills for being a competent pleasure-boat captain. It is easy for me to hide behind the noble sentiment of, “If only one person was saved” it would justify my ministry effort. When what I really mean is, “Don't judge me as a poor leader if we see little gospel fruit from a strategy that I am responsible for.”

So how do we begin to exercise our freedom in Christ to increase the gospel swashbuckling nature of our ministry?

Firstly, we must teach our congregations that “failure” and “disappointment” are part of the Christian vocabulary. The vistas of the great story of the people of God and the redemption of the world, ends in an inevitable victory in Revelation 22, but there are many examples of defeat. Yet for a believer defeat always has benefit:

• In Acts 13v46, 18v6, Paul shakes off his garments and changes his evangelism strategy, because this defeat has revealed the sinful rebellion of the world against God.
• In Matthew 17v43, the disciples fail at an exorcism which reveals their need to be dependent upon God.
• In Joshua 7, the Israelites experience a surprising defeat at Ai which revealed a hidden sin within their community.

If we fail to build risk into the regular fabric of how our churches operate, we miss an opportunity to have God teach us something painful but crucial.

Secondly, we should not be afraid to use carefully selected metrics as part of our vision. A metric has two primary benefits: it is a test for the church to check that they have an appropriate level of anticipation of God’s work through their endeavour. If the stated hope of annual church growth is too low, it should challenge the leaders to re-examine their ministries, their equipping of the saints and even their prayerful courage. Furthermore, a metric-defined goal ensures that the appropriate resources are stewarded in order to make the maximal Kingdom impact.

Clear metrics are tools not to breed sleepless nights but to help churches decide which good things they should say “no” to, in order to say an emphatic “yes” to the best things that will make the biggest difference.

A metric is a guide for clarity, but where failure is unacceptable, it becomes an instrument for punishment and therefore is understandably avoided.

Ecclesiastes 3v1-8 tells us that there is a season for everything, therefore we have the assurance that we should not get carried away in times of plenty, and neither should we despair in times of defeat. Both are legitimate expectations of the Christian leader’s tenure.

Stewarding our resources under the powerful hand of the living God means that we should always pursue an abundantly fruitful outcome; yet the gospel of grace means that we should have a capacity beyond any earthly organisation, company or government to acknowledge the possibility of defeat but never be paralysed by it.