Your Church Needs to Fail More

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

I was once interviewed by the Wisconsin Council of Churches to discuss innovation after I had produced an animated Christmas Day special as an online worship experience. It was fresh and different, building on the nostalgia of animated specials and utilizing the accessibility of modern technology, and I was so proud of it. We talked at length about how that service came to be, as well as the other dozen innovative successes I’ve had in my career, working to bring new expressions of faith and worship to the Church, and I was completely satisfied walking away from that interview, not realizing that I had missed the most important part of the innovation discussion.

I believe that churches are faced with the challenge of remaining relevant and impactful amidst shifting cultural landscapes and evolving societal needs. Innovation is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for churches seeking to fulfill their mission of sharing the gospel and serving their communities. However, innovation is not a smooth, linear path. It's a messy, iterative process that inherently involves risk, experimentation, and yes, even failure. While I spent time talking about the few bold successes I have experienced, I neglected to mention or discuss the dozens, maybe hundreds of failures I have endured over almost two decades of ministry.

Failure is an inevitable part of innovation. In fact, failure is a necessary part of innovation; it is an iterative process that inherently involves failure. But in our modern church settings, where it can feel – as is sometimes true – that we are one big failure away from closing our doors, innovation is set aside. We set the value of protecting what we have above the value of growing forward, and in doing so, we often stagnate, turn inward, and embrace a steady decline into irrelevance. The fear of failure can be paralyzing, preventing churches from stepping out in faith and trying new approaches.

However, to truly innovate, churches must be willing to embrace vulnerability, to step outside their comfort zones, and to take risks, even if it means encountering setbacks along the way. Failure, in the context of innovation, is not a sign of weakness or incompetence. It's a valuable learning opportunity, a chance to gather insights, refine strategies, and ultimately move closer to success. As Thomas Edison famously said about his quest to invent the lightbulb, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Innovation is not about getting it right the first time, or the second, or even the tenth; it’s about being willing to adapt and learn from our mistakes. It's about creating a culture of experimentation, where new ideas are welcomed, feedback is valued, and failures are seen as stepping-stones towards improvement. Churches that embrace a growth mindset, as described by Carol Dweck, are more likely to thrive in the face of change. A growth mindset sees challenges as opportunities for learning and development, rather than threats to be avoided. This allows churches to be more agile, adaptable, and responsive to the needs of their communities.

So, to encourage you to fail a bit more in your ministry, I offer a few steps that I believe have helped me in my own innovative failings:

Create a Safe Space for Experimentation: Encourage a culture where new ideas are welcomed and celebrated, even if they don't always succeed. We often are in spaces that claim, “no such thing as bad ideas,” but a safe place to explore out-of-the-box thinking without the shame or judgment around the unorthodox or unsuccessful is rare. Create that space, and you will find more ideas growing and flourishing.

Learn from Failure: When things don't go as planned, which should be often in your safe space for experimentation, take time to reflect, analyze the results, and identify lessons learned. There’s no such thing as bad data, and it all helps to describe a light bulb that doesn’t work, refining the path forward.

Iterate and Adapt: Use the insights gained from failures to refine your strategies and try again. Even when it is discouraging, the only way failure is a bad thing is when you don’t learn and grow from it. Ultimately, your ability to learn and try again is how you frame your failures as tools or hindrances.

Celebrate Small Wins: Recognize and celebrate even small successes along the way. This helps build momentum and reinforces a culture of innovation. Celebrate every step that leads closer to the goal. You can never overdo it.

Empower Leadership: Equip leaders with the tools and resources they need to foster a culture of innovation within their teams and ministries. If you are blessed enough to be in a space of systems and programs, program staff, and established departments, make sure that these steps are present in each space in miniature. Your youth ministry should be its own safe space for experimentation, too. Your small groups department should be focusing on iteration and adaptation after failure, too. Each space that has unique goals and focuses should be working to fail and innovate as well, and you need to give permission for failure to your leaders.

By embracing failure as a natural part of the innovation process, churches can unlock their creative potential, adapt to a changing world, regain and maintain relevance, and more effectively fulfill their mission of sharing the gospel and serving their communities. By embracing a growth mindset and a willingness to learn from our mistakes, we can continuously improve and evolve, creating a church that is vibrant, relevant, and impactful for generations to come. Let us, as the church, dare to innovate. Let us embrace the messy, unpredictable nature of change and be willing to fail forward. In doing so, we will not only discover new ways to share the gospel but also model a faith that is resilient, adaptable, and truly transformative.

Licensed Local Pastor Kellen Roggenbuck serves Stoughton UMC in the Wisconsin Annual Conference and teaches Evangelism and Discipleship at the Iowa Conference Licensing School.