The Monday Memo from John Stanko

Monday Memo 344: Is Failure Practical?

We are only one week away from our fourth annual “Celebrate a Failure” Week. I’m trying to instill in every reader the notion that there’s no perfection this side of heaven, and that failure is a necessary albeit sometimes painful part of success, purpose and productivity. If you would like to learn more about failure or how to celebrate, you can read my past Memos on the subject.
 
LET'S CHANGE THE NAME.
 
I’ve had many people tell me, “Dr. Stanko, I just can’t celebrate my failures. They are still too painful, or they don’t glorify God!” Even though I’ve written about this principle and even shared some of my own failures, you still may struggle with this concept of celebrating failure, too. That is why I’m proposing another name for failure, a name that is hopefully easier to accept. If you can’t embrace “Celebrate a Failure" Week, how about “Celebrate Some Feedback" Week? It isn’t as catchy, but I believe it’s just as accurate.
 
You see, failure is simply feedback. The feedback tells you that you need to make an adjustment because you are off course. When you accept this feedback, then you can make the necessary changes that will put you back on track and help you succeed. The astronauts that went to moon had to make a course correction every few seconds. If they had rejected the feedback of where they were, they would and could have shot right past the moon. They accepted where they were, however, and then did what they had to do to correct the situation.
 
I believe that our PurposeQuest is similar to what those astronauts encountered. For example, you send your manuscript to a publisher and they reject it. You should simply see this as feedback. You can change your manuscript to make it more acceptable, try another publisher or write a whole new manuscript. If you experienced a broken relationship, you can reflect on that feedback and set a course that will make your next relationship more lasting and meaningful. If you started a business and you ran out of money, you can start again more intelligently as you use the feedback from the first business.
 
Failure is what you make of it. It can be devastating if you accept it as such. If you receive it as feedback, however, you can use it to do a better job and plot a new or revised course forward. The choice is yours.
 
WHO’S YOUR COACH?
 
I was watching a clip of American baseball spring training from Florida a few weeks. This clip showed a well-known batsman taking practice swings in the batting cage. Right behind the batter was his hitting coach, watching his every swing and giving him feedback. He was getting feedback on every swing, using that feedback to improve. When the season starts, that batter’s batting average will be posted every day for all the world to see. He will have to face that feedback and then meet with his coach almost every day to stay on course and be all that he can be.
 
Baseball players aren’t alone. Opera singers take lessons, and so do successful actors. Tennis players almost always have a coach who travels with them, helps them devise strategy, and provides immediate feedback on their performance. The most successful performers actually invite feedback—they encourage and even pay people to tell them where they are failing so they can improve. What about you? Who is your coach? What are you doing to encourage and process feedback?
 
I can answer the question in the title of this week's post by saying, "Yes, failure plays a practical role in life." It helps you be the best you that you can be. If you are serious about being a person of purpose, you must learn how to handle feedback, even the painful kind. If something isn’t working, you need to know that and learn what you can do to make it better.

Why is this so hard for spiritual people to grasp? Why do we feel that we have to do it alone? Why are we afraid to fail and learn from the failure? I leave you to come up with the answers to those questions in the coming week. As we approach “Celebrate Some Feedback” Week, you need to assess how much feedback you are prepared to handle. That will determine what success level you will achieve. As you prepare for April 27, I hope you have a good week of preparation.

Feel free to post your comments on the site where this entry is posted.

Monday Memo 343: Is Failure Biblical?

I just got home from Nigeria and before I unpack, I want to write this week's Memo.  I had a great week in Nigeria where I met new friends and family who persevered with my laryngitis the last two days of our conference. Yet things went well and below you will see the first picture I have ever put in a Monday Memo.

I had some failures this week as we prepare for Celebrate a Failure Week starting April 27.  I had a bid for some training, which I thought was a pretty sure thing, postponed and I had a grant proposal turned down. I failed to get all the writing done this week I had planned and some physical challenges limited my effectiveness in Nigeria.  All in all, it was a very good week!  How many failures did you have this past week?  Probably not near enough for you to be a success.

So last week I answered the question of whether or not failure is spiritual.  I came to the conclusion that it is. This week I ask if failure is biblical.  For the answer to that question, you must read on -- but I think you have a hint as to what the answer is.  Let's take a look.

BIBLE FAILURES

I  could think of a number of prominent failures in the Bible.  Here are some.  Feel free to write and add your own.

1. Abraham's decision to have a son through Hagar (see Genesis 16).
2. Moses' failure to circumcise his son, which almost cost him his life (see Exodus 4:24-26).
3. David's attempt to move the ark without following directions for doing so (see 1 Chronicles 13).
4. Peter attempting to walk on the water and sinking (see Matthew 14:29-31).
5. Peter's denial that he knew Jesus (see Mark 14:71-72).
6. Paul's sermon in Athens, which was technically brilliant but lacked results (see Acts 17)
7. Peter's hypocrisy in turning away from the Gentiles when the Jews arrived in Galatia (see Galatians 2:12-14).

Obviously there are a lot of accounts of failure in the  Bible because the Bible has a lot of stories about people, and people and failure go hand in hand.  Yet perhaps the most powerful failure story of all is the one that involved David and Bathsheba.

THE SECOND SON

I assume you are familiar with this story.  If not, you can read about it in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.  Bathsheba became pregnant by David while she was still Uriah's wife, so David had Uriah killed in battle. When all this came to light, the Lord took the life of David and Bathsheba's baby boy.  What a failure!  What a disgrace for the king and his legacy! 

Yet David had taken Bathsheba as his wife and she got pregnant again.  Now surely this child would also be under God's judgment. Surely the fate of this child would be like that of the first one.  At least, that's what human wisdom would dictate.  That, however, is not what happened. 

She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah [which means loved of the Lord] (2 Samuel 12:24-25). 

Does this mean that the Lord condoned what David did?  Absolutely not!  Does this mean that you can go ahead and fail, assured that the Lord will eventually work everything out?  Absolutely not!  What does it mean then?

It means that God can bring something good out of any situation in which we have faith.  David reacted so honorably when he was confronted with his sin, acted so nobly when the first baby died, that God had mercy.  That's the point of celebrating failure.  God is merciful!  Failure is never the end, but very often the means to a new beginning, one that is more glorious than anyone could have hoped for.  In our eyes, failure is terminal.  From God's perspective, it's a chance to learn more about ourselves and about Him. Only God could allow one of the world's wisest rulers to come from a union so marred by failure and sin.

So what's the answer?  Is failure biblical?  I don't know if it's biblical, but it sure is in the Bible.  And if it's there, I know it will be present and relevant in the here and now.  So plan the party!  Get the decorations ready.  The week is fast approaching when we will celebrate failure, or perhaps I should say when we celebrate God's goodness and mercy.  Armed with the confidence that God has been and is with us, celebrating failure will prepare us to attempt new ventures and learn new lessons that will equip us for the ultimate success that God wants us to enjoy.

    Feel free to add your comments to this entry on the site where it is posted. If you would like to read more about the topic of failure and Celebrate a Failure week, you can read past Monday Memos on the topic.

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Below is a picture of me wearing the gift that the board of trustees gave me when I was at the Assemblies of God church in Kaduna, NIgeria last week.  I asked if this suit made me a chief, but they assured me it did not.  If you can't tell which one is me, I'm the tallest one in the group :-)  The man to my right in the picture is Pastor Paul Adim and on the far left is my publisher and sponsor for the trip, Edwin Anya.  The man in the rose-colored suit is the assistant pastor, Emmanuel Babah, who took great care of me all week. My thanks to all the leaders and the church for a great visit to northern Nigeria.

Monday Memo 342: Is Failure Spiritual?

I am in Amsterdam on my way to Abuja, Nigeria. I thought I would send the Memo while I have a chance today, not knowing what the Internet is like where I am going. Before I left home yesterday, I got a rejection notice from a publisher about a book proposal I submitted. Isn't that great? I know for sure that the publisher isn't someone I am supposed to work with, and I am gathering my own material for the upcoming Celebrate a Failure Week, starting Sunday, April 27. In case you are a new reader, here are some ways to celebrate (you can also read more about failure on the Monday Memo site):

1. If you are a pastor, you can talk about failure in your Sunday services on April 27 or during your midweek gatherings. Someone wrote me that there is no failure in the Bible. See if they're right. If not, then share what you find that can help people who have failed. You have plenty of them sitting right in front of you every Sunday.
2. If you are a business leader, why not talk about failure with the other leaders and staff. Do you have any failures to celebrate as a business or team? What did you learn from them? What is stopping you from creating new failures? What could you possibly achieve today if you weren't afraid of trying and failing?
3. You can celebrate as a family. You may want to study a biblical character who failed, like Samson, Moses, David or Peter. Maybe there is some family story of failure that can be discussed and examined. Maybe you can even focus on some historical figure like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill, who were great leaders who also experienced great failures at some point.
4. Classroom settings need not be left out of our celebration. If you teach, I would imagine that you can find enough teaching material to make up a classroom session or two. History and science are full of failures that eventually led to success, of failures that provide significant lessons for your students.

THE QUESTION

This week, let's consider whether on not failure is spiritual. Let me start by quoting from Thomas Merton’s book, New Seeds of Contemplation.

Perhaps we still have a basically superstitious tendency to associate failure with dishonesty and guilt—failure being interpreted as “punishment.” Even if a man starts out with good intentions, if he fails we tend to think he was somehow “at fault.” If he was not guilty, he was least “wrong.” And “being wrong” is something we have not yet learned to face with equanimity and understanding. We either condemn it with god-like disdain or forgive it with god-like condescension. We do not manage to accept it with human compassion, humility and identification.

Thus we never see the one truth that would help us begin to solve our ethical and political problems: that we are all more or less wrong, that we are all at fault, all limited and obstructed by our mixed motives, our self-deception, our greed, our self-righteousness and our tendency to aggressivity and hypocrisy.

Merton was saying that failure to face my own humanity causes me not to accept the humanity of others. Failure is part of being human. We cannot serve God in the hopes that He will save us from our propensity to fail. If God did that, for example, He would not have commanded us to forgive one another. He knew we would fail one another and provided the means by which we could deal with it appropriately. God didn't say, "Now that you are mine, you won't be needing to forgive one another any longer." He was saying, "Now you can come to terms with your failure toward one another by forgiving one another."

Those who take refuge in a false sense of spirituality as they try to avoid human failure have already failed. If you don't fail, you don't try and if you don't try, you won't ever know which thing you might have done was the thing you should have done. If you don't fail, you deprive yourself of the great learning experience that learning can provide. If you don't fail, you won't fully know or understand God's love that is with you no matter what.

THE ANSWER

So is failure spiritual? Indeed it is, for it contributes to our spiritual growth by grounding us in our humanity. It's then that we know God's love and grace, and are able to share those things with our fellow failing humans, not from a position of superiority, but from a position of identity.

So I pray that you will have a profitable time leading up to April 27. This is an annual event, so if you can’t cover all your failures this year, there’s always next year. I already have enough failures to cover the next ten Celebrate a Failure weeks, and I'm sure t I will collect even more material in the coming year! With that in mind, I look forward to celebrating my humanity and my spirituality with you in a few weeks. Thank God He still loves and uses you and me, even in our human condition. Have a great week!

Monday Memo 341: The Halls of Failure

In case you missed last week's announcement, by the authority vested in me as a purpose coach and teacher, I have declared the week of April 27 officially to be Celebrate a Failure week the world over. During that week, I urge you to find every way possible to celebrate the powerful role of failure in your life or the life of your organization. You can read last week's Memo to discover some suggestions of how to celebrate. This week, however, I want to talk about the halls of failure, of which there are quite a few in my country. These are places where thousand of people come every year to honor those who failed regularly and with distinction in their careers.

Where are these halls of failure, you may ask? There is one in Canton, Ohio, another in Cooperstown, New York and another in Springfield, Massachusetts, just to name a few. If you follow such things, you know that these are the locations of the baseball, football and basketball halls of fame. Let's talk about why I call them halls of failure.

FAILURE IGNORED

Let's first look at baseball. The best batters in baseball failed at least 65 percent of the time when they came to bat. The best pitchers failed as many as 40 percent of the time when they pitched, not to mention how many "non-strikes" they threw. The best fielders failed only about 10 percent of the time, but some of the managers remembered in the hall of failure lost almost as many games as they won.

In football, the hall of failure quarterbacks missed 50 percent of their pass attempts. The best running backs fumbled numerous times and the best defenders missed many tackles. In basketball, some of those enshrined in the hall missed 40 percent of their free throws. Others turned the ball over (gave it to the other team) hundreds of times and many lost games for their team when it counted most -- at the very end when they were the last ones to touch the ball.

You know that these halls where the greatest players are memorialized are not called halls of failure but instead halls of fame. They are places where thousands pay money to go and remember the greatest players, regardless of how many times they failed. In fact, no one even remembers how many times they failed. Their failures are ignored in the face of the successes they enjoyed.

FAILURE FORGOTTEN

What about the players memorialized in these halls of fame? What is their attitude toward failure? The statistics I quoted above are accurate; they did indeed encounter many failures in their careers. The key to great success for them was that failure did not define who they were or the legacy they left. Consider Michael Jordan, perhaps the most famous basketball player of the modern era and these facts about him in his own words: "I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

The great players learned (and learn) to forget their failures. They used them as a means to improve. They studied what they did wrong and what they would do again if faced with a similar situation. They failed so much that they learned how to succeed. More importantly, they did not allow failure to define them because they did not quit.

So what's your story? How many times have you failed? Truth be told, you probably haven't failed nearly enough to be successful. Have you allowed past failure to limit your attempts to succeed today? Have you allowed the voice of past failure to coach your play today? I'm not referring to your sports career, but to your attempts to write, act, lead or parent. If you don't learn to forget your failure, no one else will ignore it. That's why we are celebrating failure, so can laugh at it and move on to success, however you define success for your life.

Don't miss this wonderful chance to put failure in its rightful place as a teacher and mentor. Join with me on April 27 and the days following to put failure in perspective. If nothing else, take a moment now and then to reflect on the truth found in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Talk about how God has worked God in and from your failure and then go out and do something great that your failure taught you to do. Have a great week and preparation time leading up to April 27.

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Just a note to my Nigerian readers that I will make my first visit to Nigeria from April 5-12 in Kaduna at the Assemblies of God leadership conference. The conference is the Overcomers Rendezvous: The Total Christian. I will be speaking every morning from 9 to noon about leadership, Monday, April 7 through Friday, April 11.

Monday Memo 340: It's That Time Again

It's that time again. What time is it, you may ask? Why none other than to celebrate failure. That's right, I am declaring the week of April 27 to be Celebrate a Failure week the world over. If you have read this Memo since the beginning, you will know that this is the fourth such celebration we have held since 2001. If you are new to the Memo, let me explain to you what Celebrate a Failure Week is all about.

THE GROUND RULES

I would recommend that you take every chance during the last week of April to talk about failure, its role in your life and the lessons you have learned from past failures. Here are some ideas of what you can do:

1. If you are a pastor, you can talk about failure in your Sunday services on April 27 or during your midweek gatherings. Someone wrote me that there is no failure in the Bible. See if they're right. If not, then share what you find that can help people who have failed. You have plenty of them sitting right in front of you every Sunday.
2. If you are a business leader, why not talk about failure with the other leaders and staff. Do you have any failures to celebrate as a business or team? What did you learn from them? What is stopping you from creating new failures? What could you possibly achieve today if you weren't afraid of trying and failing?
3. You can celebrate as a family. You may want to study a biblical character who failed, like Samson, Moses, David or Peter. Maybe there is some family story of failure that can be discussed and examined. Maybe you can even focus on some historical figure like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill, who were great leaders who also experienced great failures at some point.
4. Classroom settings need not be left out of our celebration. If you teach, I would imagine that you can find enough teaching material to make up a classroom session or two. History and science are full of failures that eventually led to success, of failures that provide significant lessons for your students.

WHY?

Why the need for such a celebration? And is it truly possible to celebrate failure? Should it not be tolerated at worst and avoided at best? We should celebrate failure because it is an inevitable part of life. We avoid failure because we believe it is somehow a measure of inadequate spirituality, and in some ways it is, because you will never measure up to the ideal of perfection on this side of heaven or the Lord's return. If you are going to do anything for God, whether to fulfill your purpose or achieve your goals, you will need to embrace the learning process that only failure can provide.

You can read what I have written about failure in past Memos, but let me quote one of my favorite authors, Parker Palmer and what he had to say about failure in his book, The Active Life:

If I allow my life to be deformed by the fallen angel called “fear of failure,” I will never be fully alive. I will withhold myself from actions that might fail, or ignore evidence of failure when it happens. But if I could ride that fear all the way down, I might break out of my self-imposed isolation and become connected with many other lives, because failure and the fear of it are universal. I would learn that failure is a natural fact, a way of discerning what to try next. I would be empowered to take more risks, which means to embrace more life, and in the process I would become more connected with others. The monster called fear of failure (or ridicule, criticism, or foolishness, or any of the other fears that are so easy to regard as mortal enemies) would become a demanding but empowering guide toward relatedness.

But on this side of such an experience, we may wonder why we should anywhere near the monsters, let alone ride them all the way down. After all, they are monsters, and they do harbor powers of destruction as well as of creativity. Even if riding the monsters is the only way to reach safe ground, there is no guarantee that we will get there. People have fallen off before the end of the journey and have been stranded in some bad places. So why take the risk of riding the monsters in the first place?

[The reason is that] some monsters simply will not go away. They are too big to walk around, too powerful to overcome, too clever to outsmart. The only way to deal with them is to move toward them, with them, through them. We must learn to befriend some of these primitive powers that seem so much like enemies. In the process we will find them working for us, not against us, working for life, not death.

What are you afraid of? Is some past failure or the fear of a future one keeping you ineffective and paralyzed? Are you so afraid of missing God’s will for your life that you are missing God’s will for your life? This is why we need a Celebrate a Failure Week. It's not to glorify failure but to set the stage for success. That may not make sense at this point, but if you follow along for the next few weeks, I think you'll understand how it works.

So get ready for a big celebration, for we all have some colossal failures to celebrate and some important lessons to review. We want to get failure working for us and not against us, so with that in mind, let the party begin. Have a great week as you make preparations for the big event.

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Elections will be held in Zimbabwe this coming Saturday, March 29. Please stand with the nation in prayer. I have posted an election entry on the site A Better Zimbabwe, which I invite you to read at your convenience.

The Monday Memo 266

The first day is here and gone, but the week is still in front of you.  It's time to Celebrate a Failure.  I trust that your celebration has gotten off to a good start.  if you haven't partied yet, keep in mind that Celebrate a Failure Week runs through Saturday, October 7.  There's still plenty of time for you to get into the spirit of the week as together we focus on and learn to overcome our fear of failure.  We will do so by learning from our past mistakes, focusing on God's faithfulness in the midst of our weaknesses.

In the past few weeks, I have written about some of my more notable failures.  I am doing this with the hope that it will help you celebrate your own failures as I celebrate mine.  Permit me to share one more failure this week. 

THE WORST CONFERENCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD

When I was with Integrity Music, I helped plan and organize the worst conference in the history of the world!  Our team was going to Dallas about this time of year.  We thought registrations were coming in slowly, but didn't think there was anything to worry about.  Then we learned right before we were scheduled to be there that the postal service had lost our brochures, all 50,000 of them.  Only a handful were delivered and that explained the low response.

Instead of canceling the event, we pulled out all the stops to spread the word that we were coming, confident we could still have a successful event.  Were we ever mistaken!  On the first night of the event, we had less than 1,000 people in a church that seated 5,000.  Right after we started the event, the sound system failed.  When I returned from trying to work in the audio booth, I saw Ron Kenoly on stage playing the guitar and trying to lead worship. (Ron isn't known for his guitar-playing skills, believe me.) When he asked for the words to come up on the screen, it was then we realized that the projection system had malfunctioned.  The bulb burned out and the church didn't have a spare. 

I ran backstage to try and print off some sheets with the words on them only to discover that the copy machine was broken.  I got up to take an offering and apologized, saying that I felt like I should be paying anyone who happened to be there that evening.  To make matters worse, the event went on to lose about $15,000.  I realized that weekend that a bad event is like flushing a toilet.  Once you flush, there isn't any way you can stop the process; you just have to let it run its course.  That is how a badly planned event can be.

TWO CHOICES

I had two choices after that disastrous weekend.  The first was to quit, which I briefly considered.  The second was to take three months between Dallas and our next scheduled event and study what went wrong.  I chose the latter and we went through everything we did.  We came up with a number of innovations and built in more than a few safeguards to make sure what happened in Dallas would never happen again.

By God's grace, our next event was a fantastic success.  We introduced some changes that generated quite a bit of revenue, and our team was better prepared and focused.  Today I thank God for that terrible Dallas event and some others that followed.  I learned more from those failures than I ever did from the good events.  I also learned that a bad event isn't the end of the world. 

When a baseball player strikes out or a soccer player misses a wide open goal, they don't go off the field and sit in the stands.  They keep playing through their failure.  In practice, they work on their technique but in the game they keep swinging and kicking.  That's what you and I need to do as well. 

Don't let your failures discourage you.  Don't give up on your dream.  Accept that failure is a part of every successful person's life, even your own.  Adjust your expectations, but don't quit!  Today I can organize great events because I organized some poor ones.

So bring out the confetti!  Put up the banners and inflate the balloons. We have some celebrating to do!  Don't let Celebrate a Failure Week end without taking the lesson of the week to heart:  Failure isn't fatal or final unless you allow it to be.  I hope you have a great week as you join with friends and failures around the world as we stare failure in the face and laugh at its attempts to limit our effectiveness and creativity.  As you do, I trust that you will have a great week!

Feel free to add your comments, failure stories, favorite failure quotes or other pertinent information on the site where this entry is posted.

The Monday Memo 265

I am in the Johannesburg airport heading to the Netherlands for a few days to be with friends.  I am looking forward to my time there, but I am especially ready to go home and see my wife.  In addition, next weekend we celebrate Mother Stanko's 90th birthday!  If I'm not home for that event, I won't have a chance of reaching my own 90th!  We are having a family gathering to commemorate the big event.

I am sure that you are getting ready for the other big event next week.  What event, you ask?  Why, Celebrate a Failure Week, of course.  In case you've been out of touch, I gave you some ideas of how to celebrate in Memos 262 and 264.   What you celebrate is up to you.  Last week I shared my favorite life failure.  This week I'd like to share what qualifies as a close second.

MY NUMBER TWO ALL-TIME FAILURE

In 1993, I went to work for Integrity Music as the executive director of their ministry division called Worship International.  It was and still is my favorite all-time job.  I had the privilege of organizing worship conferences and events all over the world featuring worship leaders like Don Moen, Ron Kenoly, Marty Nystrom and Kent Henry.  I attended almost every event as the organizer and director, and it was at those events that I started teaching on finding your purpose.

I loved the people I worked with, I loved the company and told God regularly that I could hold that position for the rest of my life--and I meant it!  Then in 1995, we started losing money on the events we held.  Do you know what my strategy was to turn things around?  I decided to plan more events! we were losing money on our events, so I decided to do more of what we were losing money doing. Looking back, I can't imagine a worse strategy to adopt.

The results were predictable.  In six months, we were out of business and I was out of a job!  I was devastated!  I had an offer to move back to Pittsburgh, the last place at the time I wanted to be, to work in a local church, a job I had said I would not do again.  Before we knew it, however, we were back in a city where we didn't want to be doing a job we didn't want to do.  Now that's how I define a colossal failure!

HOW CAN I CELEBRATE?

I received many emails this past week from readers describing terrible failures--broken relationships, bankrupt businesses and ministry disappointments.  The common question from them all was, "How can I celebrate such a terrible thing?"

You will celebrate your failure the way I celebrated the one I described above.  I started out thanking God in faith for the pain and embarrassment.  It is hard to rejoice at the time of the failure and even in the days and years that follow.  But today, I thank God for that failure and the one I described in Memo 264.  When they happened I thanked Him in faith and pain; today I do it with joy and laughter. 

I would not be the man doing what I am doing today if it wasn't for those failures.  I learned so much and, to be truthful, I would do those things again, knowing what I knew at the time.  I did the best I could, but things didn't work out.  It was painful, but I lived and learned.  Those failures didn't define me because I didn't allow them to define me.  I only allowed them to teach me.

So, are you ready to Celebrate A Failure even if it means doing so in faith, even if right now you can't see the lessons therein?  I've written about my two biggest failures in the last two weeks, but not to worry--I have plenty more where those came from.  I wish you and yours the merriest of weeks next week as together we celebrate God's goodness even in the midst of our worst moments.

Feel free to add your comments, failure stories, favorite failure quotes or other pertinent information on the site where this entry is posted. 

Also, you can download the October portion of my book, A Daily Dose of Proverbs, by clicking on the following link:  Download October.doc

The Monday Memo 264

There are only two weeks left before we enter our Celebrate a Failure week festivities.  Do you have your plans set yet of how you will celebrate and commemorate your greatest failures?  I hope so.  In case you missed or can't access Memo 262, here are some suggestions for how to celebrate.  What you celebrate is up to you.

LET'S CELEBRATE!

I would recommend that you take every chance during the first week of October to talk about failure, its role in your life and the lessons you have learned from past failures.  Here are some ideas of what you can do:

1.  If you are a pastor, you can talk about failure in your Sunday services on October 1 or during your midweek gatherings.  Someone wrote me that there is no failure in the Bible.  See if they're right.  If not, then share what you find from your own unique perspective.

2.  If you are a business leader, why not talk about failure with the other leaders and staff.  Do you have any failures to celebrate as a business or team?  What did you learn from them?  What is stopping you from creating new failures?  What could you possibly achieve today if you weren't afraid of trying and failing?

3.  You can celebrate as a family.  You may want to study a biblical character who failed, like Samson, Moses, David or Peter.  Maybe there is some family story of failure that can be discussed and examined.  Maybe you can even focus on some historical figure like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill, who were great leaders who experienced failure at some point.

4.  Classroom settings need not be left out of our celebration.  If you teach, I would imagine that you can find enough teaching material to make up a classroom session or two.  History and science are full of failures that eventually led to success, or failures that provided significant lessons for future students and leaders. 

MY FAVORITE FAILURE

My all-time favorite failure was Mobile Business Service, an advertising specialty company I helped start when I lived in Alabama.  We began with such high hopes, but nine months later the business had already crashed and burned.  What's more, I was stuck with paying all the remaining bills, for reasons I won't go into now. 

One day I was praying, begging God to save or resurrect the business.  It was that morning, however, that God gave me something better.  He showed me that my purpose was to create order out of chaos!  I was seeking a business success, but God turned that business failure into a life's message that has changed lives all over the world.  You probably wouldn't be reading this today if I had not botched that business.  I thank God for that failure. It was the road to one of my greatest success stories. 

I've had other failures but I don't live with regrets.  I have moved on and grown from each of them.  How about you?  What is your favorite failure?  What failure has provided your most significant learning experience?  Are you ready to try again, putting the past behind you?

I hope you are.  That is the reason we are having a Celebrate a Failure week--so you can see that failure is seldom fatal.  What's more, not trying because of the fear of failure can keep you from your next great success.  So hurry up and get ready, Celebrate a Failure week is almost here.  There's so much to look forward to.  Don't wait until the last minute; make your celebration plans now.  As you do, I trust that you'll have a great week!

Feel free to add your comments, failure stories, favorite failure quotes or other pertinent information on the site where this entry is posted. 

The Monday Memo 263

I am in Jerusalem for the last two days of my ten-day tour of Israel.  What a great time we've had!  As an added bonus, we are the first group in after the war in Lebanon, so we have had the city to ourselves.  That has enabled us to see much more than would ordinarily be possible.  If you would like to read my daily journal from the trip, you can go to my blog site. 

I don't have much time to write today.  When you're in Israel, you maximize every minute and get back to the hotel barely able to stagger to your room and dinner.  But one thing is certain:  There is plenty of Holy Land material for our Celebrate a Failure week coming up from October 1-7. (If you would like some ideas of how to "celebrate" thie concept, check out Monday Memo 262 on the site where it is posted.)

ISRAEL NOTES

Jerusalem is the place where Peter denied Jesus, yet went on to become the leader of the Church after Jesus' ascension.  It was here that all the disciples deserted Jesus in His hour of need.  Judas failed when he betrayed Jesus into Roman hands.  The disciples repeatedly misunderstood what Jesus said, failing to apply and carry out His teachings again and again.

When we were up north in Galilee, I reflected on Peter's attempt to walk on the water, which ended in failure.  The disciples failed when they panicked and did not trust Jesus in the midst of their storms.  When Jesus indicated in John 6 that the people would have to "eat his flesh and drink his blood" in John 6, many turned away and refused to follow Him any longer. 

Yesterday we visited the exceptional Holocaust Museum called Yad Vashem, which chronicles a time of insanity and genocide.  Yet even out of that dark time, the Jews came home and the nation of Israel was born in 1948.  Yes, Israel is the land of Jesus and Paul, but it is a land of failure and rebirth, sin and redemption.

"WE FAIL."

Our local tour guide loves to talk like an Indian chief in the old westerns who used very few words.  So when we get off the bus, he says, "We go."  When we stopped at the mall, he said, "We shop."  Today when we go into the Old City, I'm sure he'll say at some point, "We walk."  So if he were writing, perhaps he would say to you as you serve the Lord, "We fail."  The intention of Celebrate a Failure week is to help you see that failure is seldom terminal, but a painful but important learning instrument. 

This has been a great tour, but not a perfect one.  I have been keeping a list of things we did wrong so we can do them correctly next time.  Yet our failures haven't taken away from the tremendous success of this venture.  Your mistakes and failures won't be able to take away from your success unless you allow them to do so. 

So get ready to celebrate the past so that you can embrace your future.  There are so many things for you to achieve, and if you can face the possibility of failure, you will be able to embrace success.  Give some thought to how you will celebrate by thinking about the lessons learned from past failures, and then move on.  As you do, I hope you'll have a great week. Shalom!

The Monday Memo 262

I am in Johannesburg on my way to Tel Aviv for a tour of the Holy Land with 80 other people.  I know we are going to have a great time, but going to Israel is hard work!  There is so much to see and do that you start early in the morning and can go until evening.  You don’t go to Israel to sit in the hotel lobby, however, so you do what you can when you can and come home with fabulous memories, souvenirs and pictures.

Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about our Celebrate a Failure week coming up this October 1-7.  The idea is to overcome our fear of failure today by focusing on the lessons learned from past failures.  If we can see that failure isn’t fatal, in most cases, but actually a great teacher, then perhaps we can succeed in something that we would not have attempted because failure had us paralyzed.

HOW TO CELEBRATE

I would recommend that you take every chance during the first week of October to talk about failure, its role in your life and the lessons learned from past failures.  You can do this any number of ways:

1.       If you are a pastor, I would recommend that you talk about failure in your Sunday services on October 1.  I know you can find enough biblical and personal material to make quite a good message.

2.       If you are a business leader, you could talk about failure with your leaders and staff.  Do you have any failures to celebrate as a business or team?  What did you learn from them?  What could you do today if you weren’t afraid of failing?  What would you try to do?

3.       Families can celebrate, too.  Study a biblical character who failed like Samson, David, or Peter.  Perhaps there is some family story of failure that could be redemptive.  Maybe you could even focus on some historical figure like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill.  Are there any lessons to be learned about failure from their lives?

4.       Schools and classes need not be left out of the celebration.  If you teach, I would imagine that you can find enough teaching material to make up a class session or two.  History and science are full of failure stories that turned into success, or that provided significant lessons for future students.

THE WAY FORWARD    

            

I want to be clear that the purpose of this celebration is really to encourage success.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true.  One way to succeed and do the will of God is to face your fear of failure.  What could you do if you weren’t afraid of failing your exams?  What could you do if you didn’t accept your first exam failures as the final word?  If you don’t give up, there’s no telling what you can do in church, school, business or government. 

Another goal is to get you to forget the past, even laugh at it, if your past includes some failure—which everyone’s does.  If you failed, it’s time to move on.  Forgive yourself, forgive the others involved, and try again.  I know people who struck out, so to speak, and took of their uniform to sit in the grandstands, content to now watch others perform.  It’s time that you get back in the game, to continue the baseball analogy. 

If you strike out or miss the kick, don’t stop trying.  Failure isn’t the end, unless you allow it to be.  I urge you to look failure in the face on October 1 and see that it is powerless to control you unless you cooperate with its intimidating ways.  Be watching in the weeks to come for more ideas for how to celebrate and what to discuss during the week with your family, friends, or flock.  Have a great week.

Feel free to add your comments, questions, favorite failure quotes or anything else on your mind on the site where this entry is posted.