What about failing?

I’ve been thinking about failure lately. How will I define it? The last thing I want to do in this new church planting adventure is fail. “They” say 80% of church plants fail. What does failure look like for me?

I’m thinking that failure isn’t so much about having to close the doors in a year because we couldn’t gather people or pay the bills. I’m thinking that failure for me is more about failing to Love and care for the people that God does bring to us. Do we, together care for or about the basic needs of those that come into our community? Is anyone hungry? Does everyone have a place to sleep? Have we put into practice the “one-another’s” described in the New Testament? To me failure takes on more of those types of characteristics than whether or not we’ve gained some sort of long-term, stability in the institutional sense.

Don’t get me wrong, part of the goal is to be able to pay the bills and to be organized, to impact many people, and to be around for a long time. I just sense an urgency to always keep the main thing the main thing. We can be an up-and-running church in a year or two, yet a failure at loving and caring for people. Yuk.

As a community we want to make disciples of Jesus who are making disciples of Jesus? Are we doing that? If not, then we must take a journey inside ourselves and ask tough questions. If not, then I must take a look into my own heart and see if I’m missing the mark.

I encourage you, the reader, to wrestle with what it might mean for you to fail in your personal life. Are you making money, but not truly loving people? Are you so busy at school or life that others miss out on meaningful relationships with you? Are you keeping the main thing the main thing? Is God at your center? Is Jesus that straight line upon which your life rotates (Axis)? What does failure look like to you? What ways can you arrange your life so that there’s less failure and more True Love (God)?

I love you guys.

---Joe