9 Paradox 1: Succeed by Being Willing to Fail

9

Paradox 1

Succeed by Being Willing to Fail

We are all failures—at least the best of us are.

Everything stinks till it’s finished.

On a recent flight, I shuffled down the cramped aisle, stuffed my oversized bag into the undersized bin, and found my seat for the next two hours. That’s when I noticed it.

A dropdown TV was playing an extended commercial for the Hard Rock Cafe. For five straight minutes, a story unfolded about all the good work the restaurant chain is doing around the world. This advertisement wasn’t simply about reducing, reusing, and recycling. It was about digging wells in Africa, adopting orphans from South America, and rescuing polar bears in the arctic. Not a single mention of the menu!

And not one person in the ad looked a day over twenty-five. It ended with the tagline “Hard Rock Cares.”

Later that week, my wife and I went to the movies. As we munched popcorn and anticipated previews, a Pepsi commercial played with thirty talking heads sharing stories of the positive impact they’re making in the world.

Again, not a single person over twenty-five. The tagline? “Every generation refreshes the world.”

Like no previous generation, young adults believe they can make a deep, long-lasting, positive impact in this world. Even the work of organizations such as Hard Rock Cafe and Pepsi draws on this inner drive of today’s young adults.

“Secular” culture is vastly outpacing the church in equipping young adults to do good. Too often the church tries to attract young adults to meetings with pizza and Amazing Race scavenger hunts. Or more likely, we expect them to show up, sit in a chair, and listen (and then wonder in amazement why they don’t come—or even particularly want to).

It’s time to face a sobering reality: corporate marketers may have a bigger vision for young adults than the church does. Savvy companies understand the topics and issues that motivate young adults to buy their products. What if a bigger vision exists for this generation than how they can become consumers of the church?

In the church, we know how to do what we know how to do. And even though we may no longer have any reasonable purpose for continuing in the same direction, we keep doing what we know how to do, even when it doesn’t work. So instead of trying something new and stepping into the Netflix, on-demand world of young adults, most churches complain that people just aren’t committed enough to engage our ministries the way we want them to.

One huge roadblock to innovating with young adults is that we’ll have to try things that sometimes won’t work—something most churches try hard to avoid.

In short, to succeed we’ll have to fail. With young adult ministry, most churches would rather “succeed” at doing what doesn’t work than risk failing at what might. Meanwhile, companies such as Hard Rock Cafe and Pepsi are outpacing the church by taking risks and serving up new approaches instead of just burgers and sodas.

This chapter encourages you and your team to consider investing at least some energy into creating space for experimentation and invention. You’ll learn about Kid President, hackathons, and why we need to stop adding young adults to our churches. I’ll provide a window into the mindset that’s required for any church hoping to do more than polish tired programs that have little promise of producing the desired results.

You’ll be asked to embrace a mindset of innovation, creativity, and, yes, failure. When it comes to ministry with young adults, if at first you don’t succeed, you’re probably doing it right.

The Untapped Missional Heartbeat

Any church hoping to build a long-lasting ministry with young adults must invest in their desire to change the world. Without it, Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

For young adults, making a mark on the world is a key intersection (some might say the key intersection) of their world and their faith. By and large, young adults won’t engage for long in a church that isn’t helping them engage in that mission.

But their passion for investing in new enterprises won’t always be comfortable for us. I learned this painful lesson a few years ago.

In October 2010, our church launched its third campus. I’d known this season was coming but was taken aback by how many of our core group of young adults left for the new campus. This wasn’t a church split or a conflict with the pastor. It was a healthy birth. But our people seemed relieved, even eager, to depart!

As the pastor who stayed behind at the “old” church, I felt abandoned. Of course, I understood rationally that the rapid departure had nothing to do with what was wrong with me (though there’s plenty!). It had everything to do with the opportunity young adults saw to make an impact for Christ in a new community.

Young people’s missional hearts long for more than random acts of kindness once a month. Raking leaves for the elderly this month and working at the soup kitchen next month are fine. But by themselves, they don’t tap into the deep young-adult longing to make an impact.

I’ve learned something extremely valuable about how the typical young adult approaches church: If we’re not trying to change the world, then what’s the point?

A top reason so few young adults are engaged in churches is because those congregations offer so little in the way of opportunities for young adults to actually change their world. Without a connection to a missional heartbeat in the church, young adults almost always move on to another church or to a more nimble organization aligned with their passions.

Some churches are trying, but most often they’re trying by doing polished-up service projects. Why? Because that’s what we know how to do!

According to one study of the (very few) churches doing anything focused on young adults, 38 percent say they’re doing community service projects. Though 38 percent may not seem like a large number, this is far and away the most common program most churches offer young adults.

Service certainly isn’t a bad place to start. But when churches limit the missional engagement of young adults to one-off service projects, these episodic acts of compassion have little stickiness—to the church or to each other.

A huge untapped opportunity remains.

The young adult heart beats with an irrepressible desire to change the world. Young adults are inspired by the broad-reaching impact of a person such as Katie Davis, described this way by Brad Lomenick in The Catalyst Leader:

In 2007, at nineteen years old, Katie Davis traveled to Uganda to teach kindergarten at an orphanage. And she stayed.

Today, she runs an orphanage and a child-sponsorship program that provides hundreds of children with education, food, medical care, and Christian discipleship. The founder of Amazima Ministries, Katie . . . adopted fourteen Ugandan children as her own. It would have been easier for Katie to finish college and pursue the American dream, but God had something better in store for her.

Of course, Davis isn’t average, as if there were such a thing among young adults. But make no mistake: the impulse that drove her into her mission is part and parcel of the young adult DNA. Although young adults may not have the words to ask for it, they long for a church that gets them out of the church and into the world.

When young adults discover that your church is serious about helping them change the world, they’ll pay attention. When they’re given agency to make an impact rather than just “help out at the church” as volunteers, real engagement begins.

And of course, as you start changing the world together, your church will be changed too.

The New Question

When you start working through the process outlined in this book, there’s a good chance someone on your team will wonder: okay, I’m starting to get it. But when will any of this cause young adults to stream into our sanctuary and become good members?

It may be time to ask an entirely different question.

As long as our first focus is on getting young adults into our buildings to attend our programs as spectators, we reduce the church to one more institution competing for their time and attention; one more place trying to persuade them (with anemic, almost nonexistent marketing); one more place trying to get them to consume something.

We must learn new ways of doing ministry. In other words, we’re going to have to fail. This work is too important to simply succeed at what we’re comfortable doing. It’s too important for us not to be willing to fail.

Forbes magazine recently asked, “In the near future millennials will occupy every consequential leadership position in the world, be it in business, academia, government, or in the non-profit sector. Will they be ready to lead?”

The article’s assumed answer is “not likely.” This is the new question for businesses, for academic institutions, for government. And it should be a huge question on every church’s mind as well.

Young adults won’t be prepared to lead because we’ve done so little to create processes that invite and receive their leadership in a way that neither blows up the church nor sends them screaming into the night. Too often the best we’ve done has been to assemble young adults to ask for input about what kind of program they’d like the church to create for them. The new question is not about young adults having more ownership over programs or getting more buy-in to the church’s young adult ministry.

Perhaps the most glaring need for young adults in the church is helping them invent and catalyze ministry that isn’t primarily for them. This involves accessing their passion, creativity, and leadership for a mission larger than themselves or a young adult program. And though I’m talking about the next generation in particular, I hope these same principles continue driving the church’s ministry to younger generations for decades to come.

To meet this need, we must let young adults lead in some uncharted areas.

Consider this research by the leadership-development company Virtuali: Among young adults currently in the workforce (ages eighteen to thirty-five), 50 percent are already in leadership positions. Half of young adults have a leadership voice in their jobs right now. Research also shows that 64 percent felt unprepared when entering their leadership role but (get this!) 41 percent already have at least four employees reporting directly to them. Leadership isn’t on the future horizon for young adults in America; it’s already here. For young adults, leadership is the new trend.

Consider this: When asked about their career and life goals, 70 percent of young adults say they want to launch their own organizations. They’re less interested in running someone else’s, especially one known for moving at the glacially slow pace of the church.

Young adults are highly motivated to run with dreams of their own. In the corporate world, they aren’t waiting around and paying their dues until someone gives them a voice at the table. They already have a voice. When they come to church expecting to have a similar influence, young adults have little patience for the grinding complexity of decision making. Often, as a result, they choose to expend their missional energies elsewhere.

But what if the church provided . . .

A Space to Make the World Awesome

You’ve probably seen young Robby Novak on YouTube. You may never have learned his name, but you (and a few million others) know him as Kid President, the pint-sized motivational speaker who challenges viewers to “make the world more awesome.”

From this section’s subheading, maybe you assumed you’d be reading about constructing a physical space conducive to young adult ministry, maybe with a coffee bar complete with fair-trade coffee, like Starbucks for Jesus. But we’re talking about a different kind of space.

What if churches created laboratory space for young adults, and what if those young adults were invited to experiment with ways to “make the world more awesome” and, ultimately, invent the church of the future?

This is exactly the kind of challenge many young adults want to sink their teeth into. For those in (and outside) the church, banding together with a community of people to contribute to a cause bigger than themselves strikes a resonant chord. Though the examples of this primal entrepreneurial urge among young adults are legion, the following are a few reminders.

Young adults want to lead, and they want to build something new that makes an impact. But the sad truth is that the church is the last place most of them think of when they’re looking for opportunities to do something catalytic, dynamic, and innovative.

In the economic marketplace, companies are valued, at least in part, by how much they spend on research and development (R & D). Companies that invest in innovative methods to improve existing products and services or in dreaming up entirely new revenue streams are simply more valuable than companies that don’t.

Where, I wonder, has the church’s R & D department been? For the most part, admittedly, it’s been virtually nonexistent.

What if young adult ministry were to become the R & D department of every thriving church in America? What if, when young adults—inside or outside the church—dreamed of changing the world, their first thought was, I have to find a church to help me with this?

Unfortunately, to many young adults, the church is like a first-generation iPad. Maybe you know what I mean.

Last week our church finally retired the original, first-generation iPad we’d been using to run some lighting. At that time, the device was less than five years old and it was already out of date.

Nothing is physically wrong with the tablet; it works fine. Not a scratch on it. I can use it to connect to Wi-Fi and check my email without a problem. But the operating system no longer has the capacity to receive the latest updates, and most new applications won’t work on it.

It’s easy to feel frustrated that a company would make something with such a short shelf life that I have to buy a new version when the old one still works. But it’s really not the manufacturer’s fault.

The community—that’s us—decided to create (and use) new applications and operating systems that go beyond what we could do previously. We innovated. We moved forward. We waited in line for the new device with the updated operating system. The manufacturer didn’t do that; we did.

A typical young adult might say: “Nothing’s wrong with the church. It still works fine. But the applications I need for my life are different from a generation ago—so different, in fact, that the church might be a mostly useless artifact. Sure, I can still go there to sing hymns and sit in a class, but that’s not exactly how I want to spend my time.”

Although most churches consider this situation a crisis, few are taking the time to see the undeniable opportunity buried right beneath the presenting challenge:

Young adults are drawn to the process of innovating, beta testing, and connecting the dots to make the world better. However, almost no faith communities are providing a space where young adults can develop something new.

The church—of every generation but particularly this one—desperately needs fresh expressions of what church can be, with new operating systems and applications. Young adults aren’t only eager; they have the skills to actually help the church discover new ways of experiencing life and mission together.

Sadly, traditional church leadership often feels totally unprepared to do much more than keep the lights on and the services running on time. What would happen if the ordinary church created a space where young adults—both those connected to it and those not yet connected—could work side by side to “make the world more awesome”? What would happen if churches began seeing young adults’ missional longings as a doorway into the church and stopped relying on food and fellowship programs?

Let me state the obvious: very few of us, especially among young adults, get passionate about being on a committee whose primary function is maintaining the status quo. Having a voice (or even a vote) isn’t enough.

More and more young adults get excited about hacking away at a glaring social problem, which our world provides in ample supply. They want to do something to move the needle and are willing to make sacrificial steps to do so. It’s no surprise that at a Passion Conference a few years ago, a group of college students (who, by definition, “have no money,” right?) raised more than four million dollars to help end human trafficking.

What the Hack?

As we begin talking through the practicalities of creating a laboratory for innovation in your congregation (a helpful process for starting one can be found in “Change-the-World Missional Laboratory Launch Plan” online at ivpress.com/sustainable-young-adult-ministry), I want to introduce you to a term I learned a few years ago: hacking.

Though easily confused for the kind of work done by nefarious cybercriminals, hacking is an increasingly popular approach to solving society’s problems.

It’s become more and more common for universities, businesses, and governments to invite bright, creative, tech-savvy young adults to spend a day, a weekend, or even a week to a collaborative, sometimes competitive, “hackathon” to solve an intractable social issue. Many now extend invitations to more than the technologically gifted, welcoming creative thinkers with a variety of gifts.

The following are a couple of examples.

What would happen if instead of trying to polish our young adult websites to attract young adults to more meetings, churches identify a big need in the community that aligns with the calling of the church and gather young adults to try to develop solutions? And what if we provide collaborative coaches from a variety of generations and disciplines and put a young adult or two in charge? Could this approach fail? Possibly. But it also might create a new kind of energy with the next generation that churches aren’t experiencing right now.

Don’t miss this: not only is hacking in the DNA of young adults, it’s also a fundamental impulse of the Christian church called to be a missional community on the move. In God’s hilarious economy, hacking young adults may be exactly what the declining church of today needs, and together the church must take some risks.

More and more Christian young adults are cooking up all kinds of outside-the-box ideas—hymn sings at breweries, businesses that employ the unemployed, and more incarnations of coffeehouses than I can count (see ministryincubators.com). Once we understand the widespread appeal of participating in a change-the-world project, we begin to get a picture of the currency that holds the most value for so many young adults.

Sure, these groups might come up with lots of ideas that will never work. Failure is inherent to any successful laboratory. But the process of creation and innovation itself—including the rhythm of experimentation, failure, prototype, failure, beta test, failure—can become a catalyst for rich community and a magnetic doorway into young adult discipleship.

Noah’s Dream

Noah was a longtime young adult friend of mine. We volunteered together, played cards together, and I even helped him paint his house. He was a small-business owner, running a tech company he started and managed. But eventually Noah felt a call to something different, so he sold his business in order to pursue ministry. He enrolled in seminary, planning to put his business skills forever on the shelf.

After graduation, Noah joined a congregation interested in church planting. He was excited to tackle a role as a staff pastor at this growing church with an eye to planting their next one.

But, as is often the case with young adults, Noah’s story didn’t follow a linear course. Something in him just wouldn’t let him keep his business savvy out of his ministry. He assumed he’d be using his startup business experience to plant a church, but he encountered an unexpected opportunity that combined ministry and business.

While looking for a location for a church plant, Noah came across a piece of property for sale. As he built friendships in the neighborhood he learned that it lacked a gathering place. With fear and trembling, Noah suggested that instead of building a traditional church structure, the congregation build a combination coffee shop and tap house, serving home-brewed coffee and craft-brewed beer.

Astoundingly, when the church leadership heard about Noah’s idea for this space, they were all-in. Within a year, his sponsoring church had purchased the property, scrapped their plans for a new traditional campus, bought the building, paid for renovations, and invested time, energy, prayer, and sweat equity in launching this venture. Believe it or not, they even redesigned the entire organizational structure to make room for more ventures like it as an expression of their fundamental commitment to engage the community.

Noah’s dream didn’t start out as the church’s dream, but leadership made the clear choice to invest in it, and it became their dream too.

Maybe It’s Time to Start Multiplying the Treasure

Both Matthew and Luke record Jesus’ often-quoted parable of the talents, the story of a master who, while on a journey, leaves his money in the hands of servants. When the master arrives home to find his investment has multiplied in the hands of some servants, he replies, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21).

However, when the master learns that one servant has buried the gold for safekeeping, the response is, “You wicked, lazy servant! . . . You should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest” (vv. 26-27).

“Well done, good and faithful servant” is a familiar phrase. We hear it often at funerals or when talking about our reward in heaven. It’s spoken as a comfort to the loved ones of people who have faithfully followed Christ for many years.

Actually, I find those words less than comforting.

This parable is fiercely challenging. According to Jesus, people who simply take care of and protect (some might call this practice “stewardship”) what they’ve been given will hear “you wicked, lazy servant.”

Only those who multiply the kingdom will hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” Not addition. Multiplication. Jesus wants to receive an exponential return on his investment in the church. The math is, well, irrefutable.

Most churches are trying like crazy to add more young adults to their ranks. So we focus on programs and promotions in an effort to get a few more in the door. But usually we avoid taking risks, pursuing innovation, or stepping anywhere close to outside the box. What if, instead, we created a dedicated R & D space in our churches for young adults to dream, experiment, and innovate?

Without a commitment to failure, our churches aren’t likely to see positive change. Without a mandate to try something that probably won’t work, we may never find the things that will. This book offers a number of new approaches to viewing ministry through the lens of paradox. The first paradox is that we’ll succeed with young adults only when we’re willing to fail. Without this fundamental shift, we may be burying, rather than multiplying, the treasure Jesus has given us.

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