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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Our Church Needs Failures

The great men and women in the Bible were all a bunch of failures. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single Biblical personality who accomplished anything for God without falling flat on his or her face at least once.

Don't believe me? Your assignment for the day, then, is to read Hebrews 11 - often referred to as the "Role Call of the Heroes of the Faith." But most of the people cited in this chapter as role models for you and I to emulate, failed at least once in their walk with God. They fell flat on their faces. They screwed up. They choked, sometimes over and over.

The Lord is looking for people who are willing to fail. Can you do that? I'm pretty good at it myself. I'm reminded of a news story I heard years ago. A woman was despairing of life and determined to end it all. She climbed to the top of a multi-storied building, walked through a window and onto a ledge, summoned her courage and stepped off the ledge. However, a strong gust of wind hit her, so that rather than her falling to the ground many floors below, she was pushed back onto the ledge a couple of floors down where she was rescued. She sustained injuries, but was very much alive. Later in the hospital a reporter asked her what could possibly have been so very bad in her life that she would want to end it? The woman responded, "Because I've failed at everything I've ever tried to do."

I think that's hilarious.

Don't think that you need to be an expert to serve God in His church. He is looking for men and women who recognize He has gifted them, and who are willing to try new things. Are you willing to risk failing in serving the Lord? We need Sunday School teachers. Are you willing to risk trying something that you might succeed at and you might not? We need a man or men to help with media ministry - somebody to manage our sound system, and tapes, and other media. Are you willing to try, even if you fail?


Churches suffer when people think they must be an expert at something before they will try it. We need more pioneers! People who will trust God when they feel Him tugging at their heart about a ministry opportunity. David Livingstone was a missionary to Africa. A man wrote to him once saying he would come help if Livingstone could point him to a good road to where he was. Livingstone replied, "If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all. "

Risk takers - that's what we need. Willingness to fail. Go re-read Hebrews 11 again, and determine to try things - big things, for God.

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