Perseverance

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Ken walked home from church with his head low, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped in defeat. What had seemed like such a great ministry initiative seemed to have petered out rather quickly, and was now on its absolute last legs. The dream had been a monthly BBQ for the community, a chance to bring those from the surrounding suburb onto the church site, engage them in conversation, and invite people into a pre-planned range of next steps to help them engage with Jesus—whether at church, in a bible study group, at a course, or in a one to one context. The problem, nobody was coming, initially it had been tremendously well received, but after a great first showing, there seemed little to no interest, the community wasn’t coming, people from church weren’t bringing friends or even coming themselves, and even those who said they would help seemed to have dropped off entirely. It was just Ken organising a BBQ for nobody each week. He wished he had never taken this potential gospel venture. Not many people actually enjoy failing. Not many people want to have their name associated with a venture that didn’t work. Not many people want to take part in a ministry that falls completely flat. But can this fear of failure impede God’s work in amongst us? When thinking of a new gospel initiative, it is easier to think of fifteen ways it won’t work, and reasons why we shouldn’t do it, rather than applying our minds to giving it a red-hot crack. In the movie Chariots of Fire, English sprinter Harold Abrahams (who is not the main character) is depicted as saying “if I can’t win, I won’t run”. He says this after losing a race, and in despair of running his next race, fearing the crushing defeat of failure all over again. This same attitude can impede our willingness to try new things for God’s glory. We’ve seen other ministries, or initiatives, or ideas, not work in the past, and so decide that we “won’t run”. When Harold Abrahams delivers the line in the movie, he is quickly given a stinger rejoinder—the response to “if I can’t win, I won’t run” is the brilliant “if you don’t run, you can’t win”. Nothing can succeed if we don’t try it. Nothing is gained by not doing anything. What is our response to a ministry idea that doesn’t work? What do we think when there are changes made to things that aren’t working, only to discover the changes don’t work either. Do we give up? Or try something else? At church we ought to be encouraging each other to try things for the sake of God’s kingdom, and remind ourselves that if something doesn’t work, it certainly doesn’t end the kingdom, but rather we can learn from it, and with what we learn try something else for God’s glory. In Christ’s Love, Craig Olliffe, Senior minister