Experiment Often, Fail Quickly

I’m amazed at the sheer number of church conferences in a single year. Catalyst. Orange. Story. Unleash. Uprising. Exponential. WFX. C3. Innovate. The list goes on and on.

There’s a reason that there are so many offerings for church pastors, leaders and volunteers: there’s an undercurrent of need for the local church to be more effective and less stagnant. More often than not, the guys and gals up on the stage speaking to these crowds are people who experiment often and fail quickly.

I’ve visited hundreds of churches and seen just about every variety of style and format of church. An interesting thing that I’ve noticed at the most dynamic and healthy churches that I’ve visited: they don’t look or feel like every other church. They’re distinctly unique and passionately focused on their vision. Moreover, the staff shares the vision of the house.

Where there is an unrelenting focus on vision and unity of purpose, there is freedom. Freedom to try. Freedom to fail. Freedom to succeed. Freedom to do it all over again.

I wonder how many ministry opportunities are not merely missed but altogether avoided because we’re afraid to experiment with a new idea, a new model or a different way of doing something? I wonder how many church leaders are really willing to lead and not just sit at the helm of low-risk management? How many will truly evaluate their current teams, processes and results and be willing to cut things – even good things – to make way for the possibility for great things that resonate with the harmonics of a God-sized vision?

Then again, are church leaders listening to the plurality of influencers instead of the singular voice of the One?

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