Shhhh! “You there - can we talk?”

In the spirit of Joan Rivers’ infamous question, I’d like to bring up one of those topics that really is an “untouchable.” It’s been bugging me for a while and I need to share it with you, thoughtful reader. Over the last four weeks, I have visited with seven people who each, in their own respective context, started a new ministry for the Episcopal Church. (For those of you who do not know, the Episcopal Church is not known in religious circles as a denomination given to starting new churches. The founding fathers of the denomination were there when organized religion found purchase in the New World and that seems to be good enough for must of them . . . oops, I mean “us” – I am one too!) Each of these seven “Church Planters” told a similar tale; they had given the new “start” their best effort and . . . it failed. That is, the new ministry failed. I mean, the very ministry into which they had poured their heart and soul was either closed or discontinued or dismantled, for a variety of reasons. In our Tribe, when that happens, it usually means that the dossier on the new ministry is closed and very few people ever have access to the post mortem reports. We just stop talking about it, as if it never really happened. If an insider like me calls the appropriate regional headquarters to ask about what happened, it’s the usual disclaimer – something about the will of God and the wisdom of the leaders and “matters that cannot be discussed at this time.” (That’s almost an exact quote from a recent call I made.)

Can we talk, here? I mean, just you and me? No blame; no shame? Let me start the conversation (right now it’s a monologue but I hope you’ll join in, right?). Here are the facts: three out of four of our finest entrepreneurial leaders in charge of a failed “start” eventually leave the Episcopal Church, after leaving the ministry. Do you understand the significance of that well-documented statistic? It means that, while we say we want to learn from our failures, we don’t quite know what to do with the very person who needs to lead the inquiry! It means that, while we love it when industry leaders advise us to “fail early and fail often” to discover what works, we’re still a little scared when it comes to shamelessly and blamelessly working through our own failures in order to discover what works. It also means that, while we get awfully passionate about recycling tuna cans and paper towel rolls, we don’t know how to “recycle” our own best leaders. We let them wander off stage to fend for themselves without even thinking to ask, “How can we help you find your next post in our church?” or, “How do we learn from this venture so that we do better the next time?”

Let me wrap this up by naming my hopes. I long for the day when we pay more for leaders who are courageous enough to put their careers on the line for something that might fail! I long for the day when we REALLY believe that we have as much to learn from failure as we do from (apparent) success. Finally, I long for the day when we judge the level of our courage by the number of failures we’ve experienced lately. Between now and then, are you ready to fail – in order to learn?