I’ve attended many pastors’ conferences—and seen hundreds of advertisements promoting others. All of these events were geared around a definition of success that assumed that “bigger” and “more” were a pastor’s goals. I pushed back from my desk after reading an ad for one such conference thinking, That’s a lot of pressure for a pastor. Furthermore, I wondered if the ad’s assumed definition of pastoral success was even accurate.
So I posted an idea on my blog: What if there was a pastors’ conference devoted to ministry failure? What if we focused for a few days, not on ministry success, but on our failures?
Such a conference, I imagined, would have to be completely different. Instead of featuring senior pastors of well-known megachurches, it would include ordinary pastors of smaller congregations who were attempting to faithfully follow Jesus in seemingly obscure places.
What would it be like to share our failures, and then culminate the conference at the communion table? As we rallied around the broken body and spilled blood of Christ, remembering his “failures,” might we see ours differently?
After the post went up, I started getting comments, emails, and phone calls within the hour. The overwhelming majority were positive: “If you do something like this, I’m in.”
The idea struck a chord, which encouraged me—but at the same time, I felt unsettled. Why is a pastors’ conference on failure compelling to so many Christian leaders?
From idea to reality
I had no intention of actually doing a conference; it was just an idea. A few friends said that if I was serious about it, they would help plan the logistics. Several pastors (and former pastors) called to say they’d be willing to speak (at no cost) because they had been thinking about a similar idea for years.
We decided to go for it. We believed that the pursuit of success—or at least the fear of failure—drives many pastors. I know it does me. Success is our Golden Calf, and we needed to call it out.
So we hosted a two and a half day event, the “Epic Fail Pastors Conference,” to talk about the raw, terrifying, and gripping topic of failure.
Our locale was fitting. Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is a gritty, blue-collar suburb north of Philadelphia. The space we rented was the upstairs portion of a dingy bar. The building itself had once been a church. The room—now a concert venue for weekend rock shows—was the old fellowship hall. We built a modest website to promote the event. Within a few weeks, 10,000 people visited the site. The idea was resonating with pastors.
We had no published speaker list of influential pastors. No merchandise table. We weren’t using smoke machines, strobe lights, or Twitter hashtags. We had no honoraria to give to speakers (our “Experts on Failure”). We even had “required homework” for the attendees, asking them to read Henri Nouwen’s classic book In the Name of Jesus and meditate on 2 Corinthians 4.
Instead of packing the schedule with back-to-back presentations, we decided to allow space for people to pause, process, and reflect on their failures and the meaning of pastoral identity.
I was overcome with anxiety when we announced the conference publicly. Would anyone really come to such an event? What if thousands came? Would I be a hypocrite for running a “successful” conference under the banner of failure?
Fraternity of failures
Much to my relief, pastors did show up, nearly 100 of them. And I realized that I needed this conference as much as everyone else.
After welcoming everyone to the conference, I asked our courageous attendees a simple question: “Why are you here?” The reasons varied:
“I’m scared to death of failure.”
“My self-esteem is low and I need to be reminded that faithfulness is what I’m called to.”
“I feel as though the expectation is so high for me in my church that if I failed I might be dismissed.”
“I’m angry at God. Ministry hasn’t turned out like I expected.”
“I am realizing that my identity and self-worth are tied directly to the amount of people who attend my church—and I need to change.”
I asked one pastor, from Australia, why he would fly halfway around the world to attend a conference on failure. “I can’t find a place to talk truthfully about failure in ministry,” he said. “In fact, I feel like I can’t find it on my continent.”
During the conference numerous people shared stories of failure.
Mark, the youth pastor of a thriving ministry, felt God’s call to start a new congregation with his home church’s support. He resigned as youth pastor and launched into fundraising and team development. Only then did he begin to question if this was, in fact, God’s call on his life. His efforts weren’t paying off as expected.
After several months of hard work, he and his wife were convinced that this wasn’t the calling God had for them. They couldn’t return to the church, as it had already hired a youth pastor to replace him. Senior leadership was deeply disappointed by his change of heart, and the situation became messy. He ended up stocking shelves at Target for two years to make ends meet.
Steve, after a failed church plant in Dallas, wrote his D.Min. dissertation on “Amoral Ministry Failure.” He shared his research of interviews with hundreds of pastors whose ministries failed (though not for legal, ethical, or moral reasons). Many of these pastors were overcome with anger, depression, and loss.
Albert, the lead pastor of an older African-American congregation in New Jersey, shared how he had worked hard in seminary for the past several years. He was slated to graduate from seminary in the spring, the same time that his church would likely have to shut its doors due to low attendance and low giving.
The sessions led to the climax of the conference: our sharing of communion. Each table received a loaf of artisan bread, and bottles of wine and grape juice. Pastors were invited to reflect upon what they sensed the Lord was speaking to them during the conference.
Each table shared the elements together, unrushed. There were tears and stories and prayers and confession and embraces. It was a freeing, healing, holy time. A few mentioned it was the most meaningful and transformative participation in communion they had ever experienced.
Those two and a half days last April were sacred. They weren’t fancy or impressive. By most conference standards, it wasn’t perfect. Sessions started late, there was feedback in the microphone, and we ran out of coffee during breaks. We could even hear the toilets flush in the men’s restroom during sessions.
And yet, our lives were significantly impacted by our experience.
Unlearning “success”
The questionable paradigm of “success” is part of my own story. My first ministry experience out of college was leading a young adult ministry at a large church in Colorado Springs. After a few years, my wife and I moved to join the staff of a megachurch in the Philadelphia area. I started an alternative worship experience on Sunday nights and served as one of the teaching pastors. I had three books published before I turned 30. I had opportunities to speak at retreats and conferences.
One Sunday a young couple stopped me between services. They smiled and said, “We love your teaching, and we know you are going to be the next Andy Stanley.” Initially I was flattered, but then I reflected: Is that where the bar is set to be a successful pastor? Is anything less than that a failure of my ministry? I can’t be Andy Stanley. Can’t I just be me?
Soon after that, God called my family and a handful of friends to step out and plant a church. After four years of hard work, we have about 100 people actively involved.
When we wear a facade of strength, we obscure people’s understanding of grace and repentance. Confession of our failure is the door to the Christian life.
Occasionally I find myself comparing my previous ministry to my current one. I am grateful for the fruit that God is evidencing among us, and I am constantly reminded of the joy of obedience I experience in following that call to plant. But funds can be tight in a small church plant. My salary is significantly lower than before.
We have no large facility with cutting-edge equipment. In fact, we have no building at all; we rent the local Boys and Girls Club on Sundays.
It used to be sound checks in front of an empty auditorium early Sunday mornings. Now I’m setting up chairs and turning on the coffee pot in the back of the gym.
Some people have told me that I wasted an incredible opportunity by leaving the chance to teach regularly in front of a few thousand to go and pastor “just” 100 people. I’ve been accused of bad stewardship.
The invitations to speak stopped coming (when was the last time you attended a conference where the speaker pastors a congregation of 100?).
I love our church and I wouldn’t want to be any other place. I know in my head that these people are missing the point and their statements regarding my ministry are skewed. But occasionally I feel disappointed that I am in a seemingly “insignificant” ministry. It’s a small step from an “insignificant” ministry to believing that I’m an insignificant pastor.
I need regular reminders of my call to faithfulness, not to success. How easily I forget what’s important. I still have some major unlearning to do about identity, results, and ministry. I am not defined by what I do, but by who I am. Or, more importantly, to whom I belong.
Shedding our capes
If the door to the Christian life is admitting failure through confession of sin, why is it so difficult for pastors to admit our own brokenness? We know—at least theologically—that we can fail and God still loves us. We’re sinners saved by grace, after all. The church is about second chances. We preach about it. We extend it. But at some point we wonder: Does that really apply to me? We wonder if failure will mean our ruin.
As I was planning the conference, several pastors emailed me. They told me that they wanted to come, but if their elders found out that they were attending, they’d probably be fired. At the conference itself, two pastors admitted that they told their churches they were on “vacation.” There is a lot of fear involved with talking openly about ministry and failure.
Yet we have no choice but to live and serve out of our brokenness, offering our true selves to the world. The Message puts the first line of the Beatitudes eloquently: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule (Mt 5:3).”
Unfortunately, most of us have failed to model grace and the gospel. We succumb to the common temptation of pastors: We’re professional Christians paid to love Jesus. How could we show our weaknesses? We’re tempted to hide our true selves. This destroys and enslaves us, as well as our congregations. When we wear a façade of strength, we obscure people’s understanding of grace and repentance. Confession (of our failure to live rightly before God) is the door to the Christian life. We need to shed our Superman capes. We must walk through this door. We cannot fly.
Coming clean
But how do we create a culture of hope and grace, so that our communities can embrace failure appropriately?
1. It starts with us. We have to model it. Eugene Peterson says that the pastor’s job is to help people pay attention to God and respond appropriately. We must pay attention to God’s heart and have the courage and humility to model the type of messy-yet-hopeful community we preach about. It’s only when we’re vulnerable that we grow.
Our churches need to realize that we, too, are humans. They need to know that we need as much grace from Jesus as they do. And they need to realize it on a personal level, not merely on a theological one. Our failures, painful as they are, make us human. Failures can be sacred, formative, even healing for us when we return them to the cross.
We must model confession, admitting when we’re wrong and showing our people we are not “Christian professionals” who have it all together. Confession releases something deep within our souls – for all of us. True and devastating failure happens for pastors, not when we forget we’re pastors, but when we forget we’re humans.
2. We need to redefine our standards of success. For many it’s all about the “ABCs”: attendance, buildings, and cash. We must be very careful about such measurements, and the motives behind them. The “Culture of Success” in our churches, at times, is actually a temptation to idolatry. When we speak out against it, we help identify the counter-cultural call to take Jesus seriously in a world of golden calves.
3. We have to create space for people to tell their stories of failure. Scripture is full of failures, God using people despite their mistakes. If we pretend that everything is always fine, then grace remains theoretical rather than real.
If we bank on success, do ministry in our own power, and keep risk to a minimum, ultimately there is no need for Christ to be tangibly present. And Christ is rarely where there is no need.
Gospel irony
The gospel is ironic. When we are weak, Christ is most strong in us. When we rely on our strength and strive to be successful for impure motives, we dishonor the one we’ve been called to represent.
Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche Communities, where Henri Nouwen spent the most significant years of his ministry among the severely disabled, gave a fitting benediction at Nouwen’s ordination to the priesthood:
May all your expectations be frustrated.
May all your plans be thwarted.
May all your desires be withered into nothingness
That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
I have some bad news. We are failures. Epic failures.
I have some good news, too. We are epic failures who are radically loved by God and, in his great compassion, he uses our weakness to bring his strength to all those other epic failures we are called to serve. That is good news indeed.
J.R. Briggs serves as cultural cultivator of The Renew Community in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
The Epic Fail conference is preparing to gather again, this time in Mansfield, Ohio, on March 22-24, 2012. For more details visit www.epicfailpastorsconference.com
Copyright © 2012 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
