Almost all the good writers tell us that failure is inevitable and a key learning moment. One says that success has very little to teach us, and failure makes us mature. Another admonishes us to fail forward, others remind us how deeply we are loved even in the midst of failure.

Yadda yadda yadda.

Of course it’s all true and profound. And probably more important than anything I have to say. All I really want to note here is that failure sucks. It hurts inside, and sometimes it even hurts other people. It can make us question our own significance and worth, it leaves us disoriented and unsuree of the next move.

I will leave it to our wiser sages to teach us how to learn from failure. Here, I’d like to help you survive it. Because if failure overwhelms us, beats us, takes us out of the game altogether, we don’t have a chance to learn anything from it. I’ve said before that one of the central lessons for young leaders is simply, “don’t quit.”

So how do we survive failure? A few thoughts.

First, learn when to declare it. You can declare failure too early out of tiredness and discouragement. You can declare failure too late, and beat a dead horse for months.

Second, articulate clearly how you failed. This often helps us relativize what happened. Say you planned to teach a class for four weeks. You hoped 20 people would show up. But in reality, 6 showed up the first week, and that number decreased each week. How did you fail? Well, you taught a class. Some people came. But not as many as you hoped, and they didn’t stick. Simply articulating that helps you get perspective. You didn’t fail at everything. You simply didn’t get as many epeople as you wanted.

Third, don’t try to feel better, try to do better. The right question to ask about the previous example is “why didn’t many people come?” and ” why didn’t they stay. Could be failure of publicizing, could be lack of interest in the topic, could be that it was a bad time, could be that you’re just a boring teacher. Work on fixing that stuff. Way to much energy gets spent rationalizing and justifying our failure instead of simply trying to do better.

And then, you know learn from your failure, cuz, huh, you know, failure is the best teacher. And stuff.

So, if you aren’t from my fair state, you need a little background. The Minnesota State Fair is a behemoth- last year, about 1 in 3 state residents attended. It has everything you can imagine- rides, games, music. All the labor unions and politicians set up their booths, all the TV stations are there, the newspapers. It’s a blast. And it drips with sentimentality for a bygone age.

That’s what struck me this year. That basically, there was a time when this was really an important public function. Of course, on one hand, it is- it gives Minnesotans a sense of place, identity, and cohesion. But in a practical sense, it’s 90% just for fun and sentiment. It isn’t really a place where significant public discourse takes place, or where people find out the latest happenings from around the state. But it seems that at one point it actually was.

I just can’t get over the rate of change in our culture. I posted about it a few days ago, and it keeps rolling around in my head. Think about it- 100 years ago there was no TV, few phones, no internet, few cars. Churches that now seem either quaint or outdated were in their heyday- a heyday that would last for a while. The Pentecostal movement was barely germinating, and radio was just getting off the ground. Hot issues in the church might have included card playing, mixed bathing, public dancing, and theater attendance. There was no such thing as a debate over women in ministry, the megachurch movement, or gay marriage. 10 years ago Yahoo was the hottest thing on the internet and 5 years ago taking out sketchy mortgages seemed like a really good idea.

How should the rate of social change influence how we think about ministry and leadership? Gosh darn it if I know. I was at a conference recently and spoke to a long-time mentor of mine who is in her 60s now. Much of the conference had revolved around responding to rapid change. When I asked her what she thought of the conference, she just said two words, “I’m scared.” She didn’t mean it in a bad way, she was just being honest. Sometimes it seems we have to rewrite the game plan of leadership every six months.

I think of three helpful responses, but heck, maybe they’ll change in six months.

First, never hold on to the past. Hold on to truth, hold on to God, hold on to people, but not the past. It can’t help you. It’s already over.

Second, always learn from the past. It’s not there to be preserved, it’s there to be understood. I was a history major, and I still find studying history one of the most helpful practices for understanding the present and the future.

Third, figure out what your knee jerk response to change is. Are you stodgy? Are you an early adopter, or a late adopter? Do you throw yourself into change quickly- maybe too quickly? Understanding our instinctive response can help us make more critical assessment of how to move forward.

What do you think? How do you respond to change?

For the record, I love preaching, prayer and worship music. I have spent an enormous amount of my life dedicated to working these three things as potential wasy to help people connect to God. I have probably listened to thousands of sermons on tape or mp3 over the years, and preached about 500 myself.

All that said, I often find that if I can connect to God outside of preaching and worship music, it can be super-helpful. I think that because this is my life work, at times, I can feel like “I’ve gotten as far as preaching will take me at the moment, I need something fresh.”

I have found a lot of help in non-worship music. I know its cliched, but Bono has been my companion for many years. Lauryn Hill, Beethoven and Nickel Creek have been there too.

I also, strangely, have really enjoyed studying business models. Not just as ways to strategize about church. I actually find it fascinating how people reflect God’s creative image in the creativity and daring of powerful corporations. This summer I’ve been obsessed with baseball, and especially with Henry Aaron. His life is so tragic, and yet heroic. There is a lot to learn from him.

I know a lot of people are into movies- I’m not so much. But some TV shows have been helpful metaphors- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing, and a few others. I’m not much of a fiction reader, but I know that helps a lot of people. I also really enjoy wandering around neighborhoods looking at houses and talking to God about my life.

I’d love to know strange ways you connect to God?

I read a book by a Puritan called “The Reformed Pastor“. It had some wonderful insights, but there was one huge element of the book that made it utterly unrealistic for modern leaders. He was leading a country parish where he knew exactly how many families he was responsible for, where they lived, and where they were spiritually.

That kind of reality exists now only in monastic settings (which, not surprisingly, are making a bit of a comeback). But for churches (or other organizations) in the modern world, change is an everpresent reality. There are statistics like “30% of a congregation in a large city turns over every years”. This is certainly true for us at Mercy, moreso given our younger population.

Whatever system or strategies we put in place must take this into account. On one hand, I have friends that I hope stay in this church with me until one of us dies. But in reality, most of the people closest to me will move on. They might move, or their needs might change such that they end up in another congregation (get over it, pastors, people are going to leave you and it doesn’t make them bad or you a failure.)

If we make plans with the idea that the same people will stay around year after year, we will almost immediately start declining in both attendance and effectiveness. We must plan for the reality that our church will look completely different in 5 years, in ways we probably can’t even imagine.

Let alone the turnover in people, consider the effect of technology. I literally cannot conceive of how to do ministry without cell phones, web sites, email, and facebook. But what new technologies will be present in five years that I’ll have to catch up with? And for the record, I’m not a techno-geek. I’m a late adopter on almost all technology. I didn’t set this blog up- my friends did, then sent me a link and said “type in the box.” But I know if I fall too far behind, I’m dead.

What stays the same? Jesus. Love. Hope. But Jesus is an incarnate God, you hear me-incarnate. That means he enters into the world, into reality. Which means, in the 21st century west, Jesus embraces constant change.

This is mostly aimed at single readers, though married folks might get a kick out of it

I’m known for being blunt and offensive on this topic and I feel no real need to change that, so here are six realities of dating in Christian leadership circles.

First, there are way more girls than guys in Christian leadership circles. Church in general is female-biased, and the closer you get into leadership, the more we see this. Oddly, I have a regular experience of Christian girls being almost irrationally picky about guys. Speaking by the odds, I’m not sure that’s the best approach. Of course, it’s understandable, because guys tend to mature slower than women. So guys, if you are a guy Christian leadership type, if you can learn how to get a job and comb your hair, you’ve got a pretty good shot. And girls, most guys will eventually grow up. I once found in my wife’s diary from the summer we met the question ‘Am I willing to wait for him to grow up?’ I’m glad she was.

Second, don’t have sex before you get married.

Third, don’t make out with people you aren’t actually dating.

(I find myself utterly annoyed that I had to make the previous two points. Particularly when it comes to leaders. For average churchgoers, sure, I understand it’s rough. But I think step one of leadership is sort of like, have character and obey God. Seems pretty objective to me.)

Fourth, try to be impressive. There is a weird Christian myth that we are supposed to fall in love only with somebody’s spiritual life. As if, you can be a total slob but if you pray four hours a day, you are great dating material. Get a job, go to the gym, build an awesome ministry, make a huge difference in the world, read lots, be well-spoken. Now look- I know your accomplishments don’t define your worth. I know Jesus loves you- crazy loves you, if you are the most unimpressive person in the world. But he made the world for us to live in and told us to go into it and be fruitful. So- based on a firm foundation of the love and acceptance of Jesus, on the secondary foundation of the love and acceptance of your friends and brothers and sisters in Christ- try to be impressive.

(Caveat: you can definitely try too hard in this direction. Any good dating advice knows there is such a thing as overkill. Romantic comedies are fiction. Part of being impressive is learning to be subtle.)

Fifth, consider how potential dating prospects will influence your leadership. Don’t marry a needy diva if you want to work long hours some weeks. Arguably, dating is the single most important activity for young adults. Little else will effect the rest of your life as much as your approach to dating. This is precisely because dating is directly connected to marriage, and marriage is the single most life-changing human relationship you will ever have (if you do, indeed, get married).

Sixth, get outside input. I often say I wish we did pre-engagement counseling instead of premarital counseling. Choosing the right person in the right way makes all the difference in the world.

If you know me much, you know I’m not a very fear-based person. I mean, from time to time I do feel anxious. But I think, on the whole, less than a lot of people. I deal with lots of other negative emotions- guilt, regret, etc., but fear is low on the list.

This has a negative side, in a strange way. And actually, I think in a way that translates to a lot of other leaders. I have a tendency towards impulsive decision making. I can get excited about an idea, or get negative toward something, and without thinking it through, make a large, life-changing or institution-changing decision.

In church planting circles, we call it “don’t be an idiot.” We often tell people that they can make it in church planting as long as they don’t do one of two things- quit, and be an idiot.

“Being an idiot” can consist of just about anything. Sudden changes- firing a leader unnecessarily, making a huge change in Sunday services, putting a new person in charge of something they aren’t ready for. It often comes when a planter feels discouraged or tired and thinks they just found the silver bullet that will make church planting easy or risk-free.

So- next time you are tempted to make a snap decision but some inner voice wonders if you should think it through a bit more- consider listening to the inner voice. Now- I fully recognize there is an opposite danger. Depending on your personality, being frozen by fear might be more dangerous than impulsivity. But- I have even seen people be impulsive based on fear- because thinking through options brings up so much anxiety, they try to avoid the anxiety by just choosing suddenly and randomly.

One other note on this. Once you have made an impulsive decision and it’s having negative consequences- get advice fast from someone outside the situation. You started digging yourself into a hole of trouble and its likely you can’t see clearly enough how to get yourself out. Sometimes the impulsive response to an initially bad impulsive decision multiplies the damage even more.

“We need to bring the hope and healing of Jesus to a lost and dying world.”

I seriously just made that up. Pretty good, huh? Sort of. I’ve got no bones to pick with a ministry that has this tag line, in fact, if I googled it, I’d probably find some amazing ministries with a pretty similar mission statement. I’ll try. Yup, Billy Graham shows up third, and he ain’t exactly a slouch.

But I want to think about a problem with statements like this. It’s way too much for me to handle! If I can bring the hope and healing of Jesus to my screaming two year old and maybe not snap at anyone in the office today, I might be doing well, let alone a lost and dying world.

An important moment in leadership is to find your smallness. You know what happened a couple years ago? The two richest guys in the world basically gave away all their money to try to solve the world’s problems. If they were in my church when they did it, I’d call that a win. You know what happened? Some cool stuff, but last time I read nytimes.com, there were still some pretty good problems cooking.

We are all of us small. We can’t change the world, as James Davison Hunter points out. And wait a minute before the rejoinder, “I can’t change the world but Jesus in me can!” On one hand that’s true. At the same time, in theory, Jesus is living in something over a billion other people on the planet. What makes you think you’re the only one who is open to him?

Let yourself be relativized. Let yourself be small. It takes so much pressure off. And what really happens is that you live in the power of the present moment. Your sermon this Sunday, your small group next week, your business meeting this afternoon- they’re all small potatoes, no matter how big you think they are. The sun will keep going around the moon, baseball will still be played, and Jesus will still love you.

And then you can really focus in on what you’re doing. Because you don’t have to do anything more and anything less than what you are actually doing. The pressure is off, the fun is on.

This summer has been mystically rich for me. I have had a much higher per capita experience-with-God rate than usual. And I have to tell you, it’s been great. I was pretty tired and burned on ministry by the beginning of summer, and I’m finally re-charged and ready to go.

This reminds me of a saying whose origins escape me. “God’s got to do something to you before he can do something through you.” It’s true!

Leadership is so dangerous. We find that we actually have the ability to influence others, that people might listen to us, even do what we say. I’ll never forget in my first year of pastoring when I met Kyle for lunch. He asked if I thought he should marry Ellen. I said I thought it sounded good to me. Within a few days they were engaged.

Whoa! We’re playing with love bullets around here. We have, for lack of a better term, power. Power corrupts- this isn’t any less true in Christian ministry than anywhere else. And while God’s power is available to us, so is human power. How do we know that we are operating in God’s power and not corrupted?

We’ve got to know what God actually tastes like. When you’ve had the real thing, you can recognize the phonies faster. Ask yourself, “when is the last time I really experienced God?” And in particular, his deep love for you. The longer it’s been, the more dangerous you are.

(I’m about to make a universal statement, but maybe there are exceptions. I just can’t think of any.)

I’ve never seen anyone called to what would become helpful, healthy service to God, whether feeding a homeless guy or planting a church, without a grounding in the experienced love of God. I’ve seen lots of unhealthy, poisoned ministry efforts (done plenty myself) that come out of guilt, obligation, shame- just plain old unprocessed pain. But the good ones come out of love.

Does this strike you as true? If it is- how do we get at experience of God’s love?

Hey everyone- so a few weeks turned into a few months. In any case, I’m back, and intend to get back to twice-a-week. For how long? How about until Christmas? Not sure I can promise much past that.

Sorry for the long delay between posts. For the summer, I will probably only blog every week or two. In the fall, I’ll get back to aiming at twice a week.