Clearly, all but the most egotistical of leaders will agree with this! But here’s the problem:
If your stated goal as a leader is excellence, the last thing you’re going to do is release control.
Because if you release control, things won’t be done as well as you do them—or, perhaps, as you think you do them. Mistakes will happen and failure will blossom. Surprising people will end up doing surprising things—both good and bad.
In a missional culture, that’s actually OK. We know that we can’t do it all perfectly because by its very nature, mission is messy. We are dealing with lost people with broken lives who don’t neatly fit into our tight orders of service that we can quantifiably manage.
At times, you will look around and wonder if anything is happening as it should. My wife, Hannah, and I have found that those are normally the times when God most loves to turn up in unexpected ways and change lives.
Go Forth and Fail!
The other day, I was spending time with a bunch of hungry-to-change-lives leaders at a friend’s church. After listening to me talk about missional communities, the team leader stood up and declared:
You have complete freedom to fail! I want you to go out there, follow that missional impulse and see what happens. In fact, my expectation is that in a year’s time all of you will have tried a bunch of stuff and crashed and burned! So all pressure is off. We have no expectations other than wanting to learn together about how to reach our wider community, and my role is to coach and challenge and serve you as you go about this great adventure!
Not your typical motivational speech! But it was exactly what they needed to hear. In the culture of many churches, the drive to perfectionism has become so strong that an overswing of the pendulum is required. It takes an especially secure and confident leader to release control to the level that allows people to innovate and risk failure.
In your church, does everything succeed? If so, something is wrong!
No, I’m not saying we shouldn’t celebrate success (we definitely should). But just what is your definition of success? If it’s about creating the “perfect” worship gathering, then is that truly a full response to the Missio Dei, the mission of God to our lost world?