Category Archives: Failure

Secret to success? Let failure energize you!

Posted on by
1

Let’s talk about failure. Whom shall we bring in as our expert teacher? The candidates are so many…

–Heisman trophy winners who bombed in the NFL?

–Coaches who went to the big time only to be fired two years later after failing to put the team back in the championship?

–Pastors who were run off from the church of their dreams?

–CEOs of mega-companies who did not make it big?

Most of us have failed to one degree or another. And, to our surprise, that’s not all bad. There are certain benefits to failing. Sometimes.

Continue reading →

The day your church begins to die

Posted on by
1

My preacher friend lives in a new home provided by the ministry he heads. “They had to tear down the old one,” he told me. “Mildew was everywhere and after years of trying to cure it, they gave up.”

A friend in that city told me the previous tenants–my friend’s predecessor and his family–were constantly sick for no reason anyone could find. Workers repainted the interior of the house every year.

“When they tore the house down, they found the culprit. There was a pipe underneath the house–not in any of the architect’s original drawings–that was constantly leaking water into the foundation.”

The minister said, “At one point, in an attempt to cure the problem, the ministry head had storm windows installed throughout the house. He was sealing the house, but it had the opposite effect of what he intended.”

“An architect told me, ‘That day the house began to die. With the windows sealed, it could no longer breathe.”

The day the house began to die.

An intriguing line.

Churches also begin to die when they can no longer breathe.

I’ve seen churches die, and I’ve seen them in the process of dying. The culprit–the killer, the perpetrator, the murderer–is suffocation. An inability to breathe.

1. Churches begin to suffocate when they no longer welcome change.

Change is life. Our bodies are always in the process of sloughing off old dead cells and replacing them with new ones.

Continue reading →

When we backslide, a dozen things happen. All of them bad.

Posted on by
Reply

“The way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15)  

What started this was a note from a fellow who took issue with something I said about the church.  He had no use for the church, he said. Every church he’d ever attended preached a shallow message, the sermons were mind-numbingly boring, and the people were dull and listless.  After venting, he wondered if I’d be interested in some essays he’d written about the church.  (Would it surprise you to know I declined?)

In our exchange, I said, “Could I tell you something that happened to me?  Even though I’ve been preaching for over half a century, at least twice during that time, I have gotten out of fellowship with the Lord.  What we call “backsliding.”

And when that happened, I noticed something surprising.  I became negative about my fellow church members and critical of the other ministers.  Then, when I humbled myself and repented, I saw them in a new light and found myself loving them. That was a fascinating thing to learn.

This was as gentle a way as I could find to tell the man that my money is on his being in rebellion against God. In his backslidden state, he is understandably down on the Lord’s people.

Backsliding.  Interesting term, isn’t it?  It says what it is, and needs little explanation.

You’re saved, you love the Lord, you’re doing well, and then you fall into sin one way or the other. Perhaps you slipped or you plunged headfirst, knowing full well what you were doing.

Now, look at you.  God seems so far away, and the closeness you once had with Him is only a distant memory.

You remember with longing when you felt so close to the Lord, so clean and pure, and so happy in Him.  You delighted in reading His word and perhaps in teaching it.  You loved gathering with the Lord’s people and singing the hymns and praying together.

But not now.

You are miserable.  You put up a false front and act like all is well. But something in your heart has died. The light has gone out.

What’s wrong?  You have fallen into sin.  The joy has disappeared, replaced by guilt and anger.

A backslidden state is a miserable place to visit but a terrible place to live.

When this happens, a hundred things take place in your life.  None of them good.  Here’s my short list of the bad things that occur when we are backslidden….

1) The rebel is holding Jesus in contempt. 

The Lord takes your rejecting Him personally. Your turning to sin is an insult.

When Israel fell away in Old Testament days, the Lord sounding like a spurned lover, said, “What fault did you find in me? What did the idols offer which I cannot give?” (cf.Jeremiah 2:5)

Continue reading →

Thankfully, Peter did not walk a mile on water. Here’s why.

Posted on by
Reply

“But seeing the wind, Peter became afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Save me, Lord!’ And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him….” (Matthew 14:30-31).

You’ve seen the video of the Boston Red Sox first baseman letting that World Series game-winning single run through his legs. It’s iconic.

It was the 1986 World Series and the player was Bill Buckner.

Had Buckner caught that ball and stepped on first base, the game would have been over and the Red Sox would have ended that so-called curse a full fifteen or twenty years earlier than they did.  Ask the Buckner family.  The video has run a zillion times on Youtube and in the minds of the fans.  They have enshrined his failure.  Most Red Sox fans forget all the thousands of put-outs Buckner made at first base, the hits he got, the runs he produced.

That is how the Apostle Peter must have felt.

Think of Simon Peter walking on the water to Jesus that night when the winds howled and the sea raged and far from being impressed–as one would think we should be!–we see only that he took his eyes off Jesus and put them on the wave, and began to sink.  As though we would have done better!

Actually, we should be glad Peter did that.  Yes, we should rejoice that he walked those few steps on the Galilee and yes, we should be impressed.  But everything inside me gives thanks that after that, Peter had a problem with what he was doing and messed it up.

Just imagine…

Suppose Peter had spent 30 minutes or an hour outside the boat, walking and then dancing and then pirouetting across the sea!

Get that picture in your mind’s eye.  At first, he walks hesitantly toward Jesus.  Then, more confidently.  And then he gets the hang of it and strides more confidently.  And finally, he’s jumping and running and bouncing.

“Peter, that’s enough.  You can come in now.”  The Lord had to call him inside, to get back in the boat with the rest of the disciples and to settle down.

Continue reading →