Dear Friends,
I remember being stood in a church vestry more than a decade ago. I’d made a small mistake and apologised first saying I was sorry and then, “We all make mistakes. It’s part of being human.”
The steward half yelled, half spat out his response, full of anger and disapproval, “You’re a minister you shouldn’t make mistakes!”
Was he really saying I wasn’t human? Did he really believe that the church, the Christian faith, had no space for mistakes, failure, forgiveness and renewal?
Did he really think that the God we follow expected everyone to get things right first time and that there was no room for error or experimentation?
I hope not because if he did I’m not sure what Bible he’d been reading, surely not the same one as me! The Bible I read has story after story about those who fail, feel lost, wander off and are found, where all who fail are sought and welcomed.
We live in a culture that is increasingly characterised by fear of failure and by the blame game where those who fail are named and shamed. Yet we all make mistakes, big and small.
It’s not possible to escape failure, or to eradicate it. Indeed, if we don’t risk failure we’d never learn to walk, run, speak, ride a bike… the list is endless.
Just watch a toddler attempt to walk and try to count the number of times they fall and clamber back up - I can’t imagine any parent saying to that child “You shouldn’t try to get up, you’ll only fall again”. Can you?
No, instead we encourage attempt after attempt, fall after fall. We rub better sore knees and encourage trying again.
In our Lent Course this year we are studying Emma Ineson’s book ‘Failure’. Emma encourages us to think more deeply about failure. In the first chapter she writes,
“This book aims to ask some questions about failure. What is it? How do we live well with it? What does God think about it? What do people think about the Church and failure? How do Christians think about failure? What happens when your get up and go has got up and gone, your energy to learn from failure is at its lowest ebb and failure seems to be the default for humanity? How do we live well with that?” (Emma Ineson “Failure” (p. 19). SPCK. Kindle Edition.)
Why not join us as we explore this together in our churches or online?
May God bless you this Lent.
May you be surrounded with people to encourage you to get up and try again and those who will join you on the floor and tend to your bruises!
And may no one discourage you from making mistakes.
With love and prayers,
Rachel