To me, this seems to have huge implications for worldwide missions. Are we enabling and funding dysfunctional structures? Do you have the information to answer that question?
You mention world missions, which seems right. I also think of pastoring in general. One of the many helpful insights of Larry Osborne's Sticky Teams was that more churches need to simply outright admit when we fail. I think that observation is basically right, especially since we should be modeling what it means to embrace the reality that life in a sinful world is going to be full of failures, but that the gospel of totally free grace invites us to do admit them.
Agreed; the mission organization I worked with for more than 5 years has existed for more than 150 years. That's a lot of success, but also a lot of failure.
To mitigate the disaster and heartbreak from failure we had intense initial planning that we had to do, but also extensive accountability - monthly and yearly.
We still failed, but it was usually the result of unimagined things happening, not the result of poor planning or lack of accountability.
Thanks for the link; we should made admitting failure a part of our character - it encourages others to do the same and gives us all a chance to keep on learning.
3 comments:
Phenomenal. Thanks for passing that along.
You mention world missions, which seems right. I also think of pastoring in general. One of the many helpful insights of Larry Osborne's Sticky Teams was that more churches need to simply outright admit when we fail. I think that observation is basically right, especially since we should be modeling what it means to embrace the reality that life in a sinful world is going to be full of failures, but that the gospel of totally free grace invites us to do admit them.
Thanks again.
Andrew Faris
Someone Tell Me the Story
I agree - simply phenomenal. So true in a lot of ways, and especially pertinent to the church and missions.
The humility of admitting failure is refreshing and inspiring.
What happens when we admit failure freely and are no longer afraid of it? Especially as church planters or in other ministries of the church.
Agreed; the mission organization I worked with for more than 5 years has existed for more than 150 years. That's a lot of success, but also a lot of failure.
To mitigate the disaster and heartbreak from failure we had intense initial planning that we had to do, but also extensive accountability - monthly and yearly.
We still failed, but it was usually the result of unimagined things happening, not the result of poor planning or lack of accountability.
Thanks for the link; we should made admitting failure a part of our character - it encourages others to do the same and gives us all a chance to keep on learning.
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