Making Mistakes

As Jesus followers reconnect with our primary mission, making new disciples of Jesus the Christ, and as we find new ways to do that in a rapidly changing world, it seems that we have something working against us. Many of us, myself included, have a built in fear of making mistakes or admitting mistakes. Too often, if a certain program, ministry, new church start, worship service or whatever just isn't addressing the main thing (see first sentence), we just keep going with the program, ministry, new church, worship service or whatever. I guess we assume that a miracle will happen, and somehow doing the same thing in the same way will eventually produce different results. Too seldom do we say, "You know, this didn't work. Let's try something else."

Jesus is the same, now and forever. The ways new people are connected to Jesus change as history and culture changes. What worked in American churches in 1969 won't work in 2009. (What worked in 1999 won't work in 2009, as far as that goes!) To find out what will address the main thing (again, see the first sentence) we will need to try different things, many of which will not work. These "mistakes" are only "bad" if we fail to learn from them. I once heard of a denomination that started new congregations assuming that most of them wouldn't work. They figured for every five new church starts, one would survive. They decided, based on track record, that it was worth it to make mistakes 80% of the time to get to the one that would take hold, flourish, and make many new disciples for Jesus. That's a whole different church attitude toward making mistakes than most of us have.

What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend in the river.