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    Failing Boldly: How Falling Down in Ministry can be the Start of Rising Up
    Failing Boldly: How Falling Down in Ministry can be the Start of Rising Up
    Failing Boldly: How Falling Down in Ministry can be the Start of Rising Up
    Ebook218 pages6 hours

    Failing Boldly: How Falling Down in Ministry can be the Start of Rising Up

    By Christian Coon

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    About this ebook

    This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever tried to energize or grow a ministry. Christian Coon takes us through his own missteps and mistakes as the co-founder of the Urban Village Church--as well as those of others working to do the same--and shows how failure can serve as a springboard to new possibilities and even a closer connection to God and what leadership means. Woven together with honesty, humility, and humor, we learn to look on failure as an actual gift that can be the gateway to a deeper journey.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDiscipleship Resources
    Release dateJun 1, 2017
    ISBN9780881778809
    Failing Boldly: How Falling Down in Ministry can be the Start of Rising Up
    Author

    Christian Coon

    CHRISTIAN COON is a co-founder and current lead pastor of Urban Village Church, a multisite United Methodist Church in Chicago. He and his wife, their two children, and their dog live in the South Loop neighborhood.

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      Book preview

      Failing Boldly - Christian Coon

      1

      TAKING A FRESH LOOK AT FAILURE

      It was the cross that signified that I had truly failed. Or, more accurately, the Red Cross.

      It should have been a day of great celebration and accomplishment. I was running the Boston Marathon, which is on the Running Bucket List of many who lace up their shoes and dare to complete twenty-six miles. I ran cross-country and track in high school and a year of cross-country in college so I have always been a pretty decent runner. I ran a personal best in the Columbus Marathon (Ohio) in 2003, and the time qualified me for Boston. Unfortunately in my training leading up to Boston, I had an Achilles heel injury, which set my training back, but I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by. I would just scale my pace back a bit. Enjoy the race, rather than worrying about my time. That worked pretty well for the first sixteen miles, but as soon as I entered Mile 17, my legs and brain started conspiring against me:

      Legs: You do know you haven’t properly trained for this, right?

      Brain: You and your I’ll just enjoy the race and not worry about my time attitude.

      Legs: You realize you still have ten miles to go, right?

      Brain: Let’s just take your Boston Marathon t-shirt, drop out, and call it a day. Even getting this far is an accomplishment.

      Feelings of exhaustion and pain come over most marathoners at some point (it’s known as The Wall), but usually I can battle through those feelings. This wall was different and hit me earlier than normal. At the sixteen-mile mark, I started running 50 percent of the time and walking the other 50 percent. With each mile, that ratio shifted more and more toward the walking component until around Mile 22, I was spent. I saw the Red Cross tent and walked over and slumped into a chair. Some very kind medical professionals came over and checked on me, but I don’t remember much of my conversation with them, other than their insistence that I drink more water. All I could see was hundreds of people passing me by. My brain had another message for me.

      Whereas before it was telling me to drop out, that I’d already accomplished something, it now had a different story: You have failed. You have failed. You have failed.

      Hearing Voices

      I don’t think I’m alone in hearing that internal voice. It seems to pop up in the minds of many who strive to accomplish something, whether it’s running a marathon or succeeding in one’s vocation, including my profession, church leadership.

      Those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the church may assume that pastoral leaders are immune to self-criticism and feelings of failure. After all, doesn’t a pastor have a sense of divine inner peace that repels these kinds of thoughts? I think many pastors would respond, If only . . .

      No, church leaders hear those internal voices just as much as anyone. Why are my worship numbers declining? Why is the financial giving dropping off? Is it just me, or do my sermons seem really flat? Why haven’t I been able to get through to my congregation? What is wrong with me? Why did I fail?

      When I decided to write a book a couple years ago, I knew what the book would not be about: church growth. I’ve read many of those kinds of books and some have been helpful, but, as I noted in the introduction, a part of me feels a little depressed after reading them. I liken it to auditioning for a role in a play and then discovering the next person auditioning is Meryl Streep. You thought you were pretty good, but compared to a real success, maybe you’re not so great after all.

      Instead, I wanted to write an anti-church growth book. I wanted to write about failure. It’s such a harsh word, failure. There’s a finality to it and with that finality comes a stigma that doesn’t easily leave one’s psyche. That stigma also brings with it a nice dose of loneliness, which amplifies the internal voice that leads us to believe we are the only ones who have ever failed.

      I’m happy to report that all of us fail, even those who seem to be successes. In his book Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, Scott A. Sandage highlights numerous examples of notable Americans who did not always achieve success nor always receive affirmation. Sandage opens his book by describing a funeral held in May 1862. Typically, a funeral will have its share of stories about the deceased’s goodness, but one eulogizer at this particular funeral took a different track. He focused on the dead man’s unfulfilled potential. He seemed born for greatness . . . and I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition.¹ The eulogizer? Ralph Waldo Emerson. The person he was speaking of? Henry David Thoreau. Emerson apparently desired more from Thoreau and considered it a disappointment and failure of sorts that Thoreau didn’t meet those expectations. (I have to believe that as Emerson was speaking, a few people made mental notes: Don’t invite Mr. Emerson to speak at my funeral).

      Ralph may have been a little harsh on his friend Henry, but this story exemplifies that no one—even a person you and I would consider a success—is immune to the perceptions of others, which, in turn, can have an impact on our sense of failure. Americans love success stories. Our most common form of communication these days—social media—is built on the premise that we show our best side so that we look successful to our peers, whether we know them well or not. Churches and denominations love success stories, too. We hear so often about the declining influence of religion in society that we hunger for a word about something that’s going well.

      But I believe that we lose out when we fail to examine failure because, however you define success, it usually comes as a result of stubbed toes, embarrassing missteps, and miscalculated risks. Indeed, history is replete with notable individuals who failed at one point or

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