We love success stories, don’t we?
Wouldn’t it be great if life was one win after another? But that’s not how it works.
You can only build a life on the lessons you learn from failures. Everyone seems to know this — at least they’re all saying it:
- “You learn nothing from success. You learn everything from failing, and fear of failing is what holds people back from doing anything.” — George Clooney (Oscar-winning actor)
- “You learn nothing from success. You learn everything from failure.” — Ed Sheeran (4 time Grammy-winning singer)
- “You only learn from your failures.” — Steve Harvey (7 time Emmy-winning comedian)
- “Winning is one thing, but out of losing I always learned more.” — Niki Lauda (3 time World Formula 1 champion)
Did you notice anything in common among those people who praised the value of failure? That’s right, they’re all massively successful in their chosen field.
It’s easy to see the value in failure when you’re looking back at it from the top of the mountain. But what about the rest of us?
The Failure Of The Cross
What happens when failure doesn’t lead to massive success? Is there anything positive about it, then? I believe so.
The ministry of Helping Small Churches Thrive was started, not because I had massive success as a pastor, but because, after decades of pastoring, it looked like I had failed at doing what every church growth advocate was telling me — to build a bigger church.
Sure, I learned lessons from those failures, but none of those lessons helped me overcome that failure and finally build a big church. I just failed at it. Period.
But.
While I was failing at one thing, I was succeeding at something else—being okay with pastoring a small church. A very vibrant, healthy, and effective small church, to be sure. But still small. And that failure, not the successes on the other side, is what I embraced to build a ministry that helps others.
I didn’t move from failure to success, I let go of the push for success and decided to embrace the failure.
Success wasn’t found on the other side of the failure, it was right there in the middle of the failure.
The Failure Of The Cross
Today, when I hear pep talks about building from strength to strength it often feels shallow. After all, Jesus didn’t say “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” he said “take up your cross and follow me.” And Jesus’ cross didn’t make him stronger, it literally killed him. (Yes, there’s way more to the cross than that, but there is that.)
When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn’t so he could learn lessons that made him stronger. Jesus died so he could rise again.
Failure was the essence of what Jesus came to do. He fully embraced not just failure, but our sin and separation from God the father.
Jesus had to fail. Resurrection couldn’t happen without it.
It’s the same for us.
The idea that failure is just a blip on the road to success is not a biblical principle. It’s not necessarily a bad principle, and at times life works out that way, but that’s not what Jesus taught or how he lived.
So, for the rest of us who are struggling and failing with very little expectation of massive success, how can we embrace failure in a way that can build an effective ministry and a fulfilling life?
Here are some starter ideas:
7 Steps To Build A Ministry (And Life) In The Middle Of Failure
1. Admit Your Failures
You get nowhere until you do this. With a full, accurate, clear-eyed acknowledgment of your current reality.
2. Embrace Your Failures
In my first book, The Grasshopper Myth, I titled the first chapter “Hi, I’m Karl, and I’m a Small Church Pastor.” I fully embraced my failure.
Saying that I was a small-church pastor was admitting that I wasn’t a big-church pastor. It was scary at first, but I’ve talked to so many fellow pastors who have told me that when they said the same thing, the weight that lifted from their shoulders felt like the whole world.
3. Learn From Your Failures
This is where all those celebrites and I find common ground. If you don’t learn from your failures, then all you have is the failure.
Yes, I know I wrote “When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn’t so he could learn lessons” just a few paragraphs ago. And I stand by that. We don’t fail so that we can learn lessons, but that doesn’t mean lessons can’t be found in the rubble of failure.
4. Don’t Be Defined By Your Failures
You have failed. That’s not the same as “you are a failure.”
One is a result, the other is an identity.
5. Find The Value In Your Failures
As I mentioned earlier, if I had succeeded in building a big church, I would not have succeeded in pastoring a healthy small church—or in helping other small churches and their wonderful pastors.
There is something in your failures that you can build on.
6. Share Your Failures With Fellow Travelers
Helping Small Churches Thrive is starting to build a network of small-church leaders (more on that in the coming months). I’m not the only pastor who failed to build a big church only to discover what I was really called to do inside that failure—lead a healthy small church.
One of the huge downsides of not being open and honest about your failures is that you’ll never find the fellow travelers who can walk this road with you. But when you do, it’s amazing the doors that will open up because—trust me—there are way more of us (the joyful failures) than there are of them (the constant successes).
7. Redefine Your Failures
When Jesus rose from the dead, he redefined the cross. It’s impossibe for us to imagine how horrible, how terrifying, how despicable the cross used to be. If you had told anyone in the Roman world that one day the cross would become a worldwide symbol of hope, life, and salvation, they’d have thought you were crazy. And you probably would have been.
But one day’s crazy is another day’s hope. One moment’s failure is another moment’s joy.
Inside that effort you’re failing at is a nugget of something else that you’re doing (or can do) extremely well.
Don’t run from your failure. Look deeper into it.
(Photo by Tom Woodward | Flickr)
