SUMMER 2019 Summer 2019 • $8.95
Journal of Children, Youth & Family Ministry
FAILING FORWARD
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100% COVERED SEMINARY TUITION A new scholarship for innovative leaders Going to seminary doesn’t have to mean going into debt. Gain practical expertise in Luther Seminary’s Children, Youth, and Family Ministry degree program. The Jubilee Scholarship covers all tuition costs for admitted M.A. and M.Div. students. Find a program overview at luthersem.edu/cyf. For more about scholarships visit luthersem.edu/jubilee.
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PUBLICATION INFORMATION Published by: ELCA Youth Ministry Network www.elcaymnet.org
CONTENTS Welcome! 4 Todd Buegler
Failure is Always an Option. Interview with Bishop Michael Rinehart 5 Leigh Finke
Youth Ministry Success Versus Failure 7 Tom Hoegel
The First Woman of ___________. Beth Lewis’ Story from Kentucky to the Executive Boardroom Angela Denker Subscription Information: call 866-ELCANET (352-2638) or visit: www.elcaymnet.org connect@elcaymnet.org
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Responding to Moments of Failure in Mininstry 12 Leigh Finke
Design and Layout: Michael Sladek Impression Media Group www.impressionmediagroup.com
On Failure 18 George Baum
Managing Editor: Erin Gibbons
UPCOMING CONNECT ISSUE THEMES: Connect Editorial Board: Todd Buegler, Nate Frambach, Erin Gibbons, Dawn Rundman, Michael Sladek
Practice Not Perfect (Fall ‘19)
ELCA YOUTH MINISTRY NETWORK BOARD Cover Photo: Michael Sladek www.msladekphoto.com
Becky Cole: Board Member
Kinda Makini: Board Member
Kelly Sherman-Conroy, Board Member
Sue Megrund: Board Member
Dan Fugate: Board Member
Tom Schwolert: Board Chairperson
Rev. Regina Goodrich: Board Member
Rev. Todd Buegler: Executive Director
The ELCA Youth Ministry Network exists to strengthen and empower adult youth ministry leaders in service to Christ as a part of God’s mission.
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WELCOME!
NEWS BITS
Dear friends,
NETWORK NEWS
I’m going to take this opportunity to be completely honest: This issue of the Connect Journal was kind of a mess. I don’t mean the actual issue. The articles are, I believe, helpful and insightful. But the process of putting the issue “Failing Forward” together was kind of a comedy of errors. We had problems contacting authors, meeting deadlines and getting it all pulled together. In fact, the original intent was to have this issue out in late April or early May. Here we are in July…hoping to get it out in a few weeks. It’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is. Sometimes we fail. We just do. We have ideas that don’t work; we take our best shot at something, and it just doesn’t fulfill our vision.
Registration for Extravaganza 2020 in Anaheim, California is open! The main event will be January 31-February 3. Intensive Care Courses will take place Jan 30-31. New this year: The learning opportunities will be organized around learning tracks. More info on the premier faith formation event in the ELCA can be found at ext20.org
Let me first be clear: I’m not talking about mistakes. A mistake is when we have a lapse in judgment or ethics, or we misspeak, or we miscount or we haven’t given something our best effort. Mistakes aren’t OK. We cannot tolerate mistakes. But I’m not talking here about mistakes. I’m talking about failure. I believe that the church, like the great innovators and inventors of the past (Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Katharine Blodgett, Mary Jackson, Marie Curie, Walt Disney, the list goes on…) needs to embrace failure. It is from experimentation, from failure that we will innovate and learn. Shouldn’t a mantra of the church be: Fail Forward? Shouldn’t our culture be one of innovation?
Nominations are being taken until September 1, 2019 for individuals to serve on the Network Board of Directors. The board tends the Network’s mission a vision. More information can be
I want our church to be one that makes big attempts. I want us to tap into God’s imagination and to swing for the fences, knowing that when we do, we have a significant chance of failing. But I’d rather we’re known as a church that tries to do great things and fails than one that chooses to play it safe. The children, youth and families with whom we work have lives and faith that are precious to God. They should be equally precious to us. And they deserve nothing but our best. They deserve excellence in the ministry we do.
found at elcaymnet.org/board
The Network’s social media “front page” is our new Facebook page. Our Facebook group has been converted to a closed
God does not ask for perfection from us. If we were capable of perfection, then the incarnation never would have been necessary. Instead, God asks those of us placed in leadership to give this ministry our very best—to avoid mistakes, but to try hard to connect the truth, beauty and hope of the resurrection to the broken lives of God’s people.
group, to allow the conversations and support to go deeper. Be sure to like our Facebook page: facebook.com/elcaymnet and to join our group}
God asks us to dream big and to fail forward.
facebook.com/groups/elcaymnet
Networked in Christ,
Todd Buegler Executive Director – ELCA Youth Ministry Network Pastor – Trinity Lutheran Church; Owatonna, Minnesota Todd@elcaymnet.org
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FAILURE IS ALWAYS AN OPTION INTERVIEW WITH BISHOP MICHAEL RINEHART Connect Journal: I’d like to start by asking what failure means to you. Bishop Michael Rinehart: If you think of failure as not achieving a goal or objective you are trying to reach, that’s a starting place. There’s certainly different levels of failure, but you can think about them all in the same vein. You always got to view failure as one step in a process. CJ: If it’s one step in a process, do you think it’s safe to say that no failure is permanent? The light bulb thing—that’s how my conversation with Bishop Michael Rinehart started and ended. Rinehart is bishop of the TexasLouisiana Gulf Coast Synod, home to 105 ELCA congregations spread across western Texas and southern Louisiana. The light bulb thing is a reference to Thomas Edison and his quest to invent the light bulb. In the famous, perhaps apocryphal quote, Edison said, “I didn’t fail to invent the ligh tbulb 1,000 times. I created the light bulb in a 1,000-step process.” I spoke to the bishop about failure and how he understands the concept of failure in our current U.S. political and religious climate. Rinehart said that his synod sees, on average, one ELCA church close its doors every year. But despite the declining numbers in congregations and the increasing crises that face our nation—including the crisis at the border currently underway—he maintains an optimistic outlook about the future (several times he wondered if he was being to Pollyanna-ish).
BMR: I think that’s the hope of the resurrection, isn’t it? That there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God. There’s certainly failure that can leave permanent scars, but we believe there’s no failure that cannot be redeemed at some level. CJ: Where do you encounter this notion of failure and resurrection in your work? BMR: There’s an old adage in business—be sure to generate an efficient amount of excellent mistakes. Every time you try something and you mess up, you just learned how to not do something. Right now, in the church, we’re living in a time of change, of innovation. It’s absolutely critical that we be growing and learning. CJ: That’s one way of looking at the trends of the church.
“It’s the lightbulb thing,” he says. “That’s how you have to look at it.”
BMR: I believe right now is a time of reformation in North America. We’re coming from a time when church was the popular thing to do and coming into a time when church is going to be the church of conscience—a lot of change.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
CJ: Can you tell me what you mean by “church of conscience”?
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by Leigh Finke
BMR: It was always the socially popular thing to do, to join the church in the 1950s. It was financially and socially advantageous to become a member of a congregation—whether you cared about justice and poverty and immigrants and orphans and widows and aliens and all the things the scripture talks about or not. It was a social club, basically. Now we’re in a place where, thanks be to God, nobody cares or even knows whether you belong a congregation on Sunday morning. If you’re going to a church, it’s because you really believe in what the church stands for in society. I think there’s a kind of purifying going on. CJ: When someone looks at the data around congregations, they could understand the decline at least in part as the church failing to get their message across. But you’re saying the church is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. BMR: Right. You can look back and see how the church has failed along the way. But a lot of stuff that’s happening in society is a multi-generational shift over much of North America that is not in the control of any one particular congregation. So, we can wring our hands and say what happened. Or we can look at it and say, hey, we’re in a new mission field. This is an opportunity, let’s engage the mission field. CJ: Another area in which we could describe failure, nationally, is immigration. What do you think the church can or should be doing on that level of failure? BMR: We are in a situation right now where, in 1980, I think we resettled 200,000 refugees, and now we’re 30,000. That’s just awful. But people are responding. They’re becoming more aware and educated. When (the
Trump administration) started separating children at the border and people saw children in cages, all of a sudden you saw people rise up and this administration did a turnaround in their policy—not a perfect turnaround, but they stopped some of what they’re doing. I think what we’re seeing people learning from their mistakes—people picking up the ball and running with it and not taking for granted that these things happen. Is that too Pollyanna? CJ: Maybe. When we think about failure, and we look at the things we’re talking about—refugee resettlement numbers, camps for people at the border—how do you contextualize that failure? Is that the failure of U.S. government policy; is that the failure of the people, of the church? BMR: When we started with the internment camps for the Japanese around World War II, whose failure is that? It’s everybody’s failure. The question is, what’s the church’s faithful response in light of the things that are happening? You can’t tell the government to stop doing what it’s doing. But what you can do is speak out against it, fight against it, donate money to organizations that are litigating against it. We’re seeing that happen. I see hopeful signs of that. CJ: Let’s go from the macro to the micro. Can you talk a little about what your vision of failure and opportunity means for people in youth and family ministry? BMR: We’re in a time of experimentation. If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something else. I’m more worried about places that are still doing the same stuff they were doing in 1970—and it isn’t working—and then throwing their hands in the air and saying this is not fair, parents aren’t committed enough, our pastors aren’t good enough, our youth workers aren’t strong enough. Every excuse in the book. No. We’re in a different place. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean killing (everything). You don’t sink the ship you’re on until you build a new one, but maybe you operate with a dual operating system.
Trying new things on the side, when you have something new that works, eventually it makes the old irrelevant. CJ: What do you think it is that keeps people from trying new things? BMR: There’s two responses to any problem. The traditionalist response is, it’s not working because we’re not doing the things we used to do in the way we used to do them. I call it the golden years motif—if we would just go back to the golden age, everything would be wonderful again. Then there’s burn the house down. Nothing that used to be is any good anymore—burn it all down and start from scratch. I don’t find that particularly helpful either. The trick is to not get stuck. I think folks get stuck because they see all the change around them—and they’re somewhat terrified by it—and they think, if we go back to the way it was, everything will be wonderful. CJ: You mentioned congregations having different realities. Can you tell me what that means, and how that might affect someone’s willingness to try new things? BMR: We have some areas in Houston that are one-quarter African-American and Latino, one-quarter Asian, one-quarter Anglo. Huge Buddhist and Hindu temples, strong LGBTQ community—those realities for those congregations in those settings are night-and-day from a rural congregation that is an hour and a half from a metro center, where it’s harder and harder to keep a hospital open, harder and harder to keep a gas station open. And then you have suburban congregations who can still live in the myth of the past because they’re still big enough that if feels like they have something strong going and they’re not at the point of catastrophic engine failure yet. CJ: What keeps that rural church from trying something new? BMR: Whether rural or urban, sometimes it’s the power holders in the organization. And that’s not just about money. If it’s a 6
generational church, where the majority of the members are part of one or two families that started the church, there’s power there. If the elders of the community aren’t willing to budge, then sometimes communities just get stuck. Then you either plan a new congregation altogether or else they eventually just decline and close. Our synod—one congregation a year closes. CJ: We’ve got massive change that’s happening on the national level, at the community level. As you’ve said, there’s a real need to try stuff, and trying means failure. What’s your message to those folks who are working in those churches? BMR: I think my first thing would be, you can’t get people to go from here to there until they see that here is no longer a viable place. Part of our job is a ministry of dissatisfaction. I like to tell people it is the gift of discouragement. You have to help people recognize that here is no longer a viable place. Second, you have to recognize that there’s going to be grief, and you have to name that grief, own that grief, honor that grief. Third, I like the dual operating system model—don’t kill what you got, build something new alongside. Four, innovate, innovate, innovate. Try new things. Create a space. The more new stuff you try, the more the congregation gets flexible and limber and can say, okay we’re going to be trying new things for a while, and it’s okay. Here’s another thing, small groups. Half of all small groups fail within a year or so, if you call it fail. But if you have a group that meets for a year, and studies the Bible, is that really a failure? Instead it ought to spur us. It ought to motivate us. And, Thomas Edison. The light bulb thing.
Leigh Finke is a reporter living in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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YOUTH MINISTRY SUCCESS VERSUS FAILURE By Tom Hoegel One great advantage of working with young people for over 40 years is the perspective it gives on success versus failure. I find that authentic relationships are rooted in the ability to celebrate victories and walk alongside each other in the challenging times that don’t go well. One of the reasons that I love working with youth is their willingness to do just that.
son,” I never took my church van back to any dump. As I reflected on the day’s event and after telling my pastor, an odd sense of irony and bad planning changed to a longlasting reminder to never, ever, ever take myself or my intentions too seriously. I’m a big believer that God must have a huge sense of humor. I continue to be proof of that.
Now, I’ve had plenty of what you call “failures.” They include money-losing fundraisers, leaving kids behind at gas stations on road trips, discussions that have fallen flat, hiring speakers who pushed Gathering sponsors over the edge, caving to the unreasonable demands of parents and so many more.
On the “successes” side of the ledger, I would say that after thousands of discussions, mission trips, Bible studies, Easter breakfasts, musical tours, work days, sporting events, hospital visits, juvenile court appointments, ski trips, etc., the greatest success of our ministry has been the total, 100% commitment to “being with” the youth I get to encounter. I long ago learned that I fall short in plenty of areas, but what young people are longing for more than anything is to be loved and included.
One “fail” that started off as well-meaning was a time that I was asked to help clean up the apartment of a lifelong hoarder. For some reason I didn’t have access to my truck, so I hooked up my dump trailer to the church van, and off I went to lend a hand. Fred’s hoarded items of choice included waist-high stacks of newspapers, old food, unsanitary items, weapons and pornography. One of my friends dealt with the weapons, and I proceeded to load up a 5 x 10-foot trailer full of the rest. After a couple of days of work, off I went to the dump. It happened to be an unusually windy day at the dump, and when I raised my trailer, hundreds of books, magazines, and tapes—including the pornography—went blowing all over. After quickly lowering my trailer, I stepped back, and as I watched dozens of workers running toward me, all my eyes could see was “Bethel Lutheran Church” written clearly on the side of my van. Partially in horror, dismay and a sense of stupidity, I drove my church van and contraband trailer out of the dump as fast I could. Maybe because I “learned my les-
How many times do we charge forward with great lesson plans and spiritual revelations that we want to impart to the kids we work with? How many times do those fall flat? Now, I’m not saying to not be prepared or have plans. Quite the opposite—I’m a huge believer that the more we are prepared, the more we can go with the flow. But the plan and end goal aren’t the finish line. It is the process of being in the journey that community and growth happen. It’s practice, not perfect! I’ve been blessed the past decade to have several students who have stretched my ideas and taught me to be more inclusive. We have an extremely diverse youth group based on gender and sexuality. I continue to hear from young people who visit with their friends that they can’t talk honestly about the things we discuss with their church groups. I believe that is tragic!
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Our youth mission statement is, “To provide a place where youth are loved and accepted with Jesus as our example.” We embrace the concept to love people for who they are right now, not for who they should be. Not only has my group shown me how to be a better leader, but we continue to have the opportunity to guide the adults in our church and beyond on the journey to become more loving and accepting. Do we still make mistakes? Plenty of them. We are awkward at times. We are insensitive and sometimes just ignorant as we forge forward and do life together. Life and ministry are a beautiful mix of successes and failures that allow us to celebrate and remind us how much we don’t have the right to judge others. Each of us has gifts and God promises to use them. I think a huge part of success is relaxing into acknowledging and using those gifts. Kids sniff out inauthenticity better than any other. Be yourself and love them for who they are. We’ve got lots of time to continue to become the peeps God wants for us. Oh, yeah, never take yourself too seriously!
Tom Hoegel has been the Youth Director at Bethel Lutheran Church in Cupertino, California for the past 35 years. He is also the Tech & Talent Team Director for the ELCA Youth Gathering and is getting ready to serve his 13th in Minneapolis. One of his passions is having youth bands lead at Gatherings and in churches. He also serves as owner/operator of Big Dog Sound and loves working to support the church.
THE FIRST WOMAN OF ___________ BETH LEWIS’ STORY FROM KENTUCKY TO EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM by Angela Denker Even after beating the odds in publishing and rising to be named CEO of struggling Augsburg Fortress publishers in 2002, Lewis felt like an outsider. People said she wouldn’t make it because the company was “dangerously close to financial collapse,” and “she wasn’t a pastor.” Her occasional southern accent also made her stand out in a world of Midwestern Lutherans who often joked about Ole & Lena, hot dish and Jell-O.
Beth Lewis’ life and career have taken her many miles across America. Growing up in Lexington, Kentucky, a rare Lutheran surrounded by Southern Baptists, she moved on to an early career in textbook sales that often took her thousands of miles on the road from motel to motel, eating dinner alone in unfamiliar restaurants. At age 23, she was younger—and a different gender—than most salespeople on the road. She faced sexism and discrimination, being underestimated and passed over and underpaid time and time again. “#MeToo is very real to me,” Lewis says, remembering a time when a prospective textbook customer showed up at her motel. She also remembers getting a 10% raise in her first year as a sales rep. She was excited, until a coworker told her: “It’s a lot of work for only $15,000!” After her raise, Lewis’ was making $9,900, and she was training this new sales rep whose salary was $15,000.
Still, it was these very differences and challenges that enabled Lewis to transform struggling Augsburg Fortress to a dynamic, growing and self-sustaining media company called 1517 Media today. “I was able to see beyond the northern Midwest Lutheranism,” she says. “I encouraged the company to serve the whole of the ELCA as well as ecumenical partners, and I think the roots of this came from my upbringing.” As a current Fortress Press author myself, I can concur with the transformative effects of Lewis’ leadership. Coming from a secular journalism background before entering seminary, my preferred writing style was reported nonfiction. I wanted to tackle political topics for a secular, as well as Christian, audience, and I wanted to write about Evangelical Christianity probably more than Lutheranism. My original editor, Tony Jones, who Lewis and her team brought to Fortress 10 years ago, embraced this idea and style. As I look at the other Fortress books releasing soon, you can again see this influence.
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In keeping with the Lutheran theological understanding of vocation encompassing more than just religious callings, I see Fortress seeking a wide, not primarily Lutheran, audience without betraying its Lutheran roots. This feels right for a 21st-century audience, and it’s something only a visionary CEO like Lewis could have steered. While much of Lewis’ success came in the business world—her parents were both graduates of The Ohio State University business school—perhaps her parents’ most influential guidance came in their family’s commitment to the local church. Lewis and her two younger brothers have remained close over the years, recalling their childhood as one reminiscent of “Leave it to Beaver”. Her mom was a frequent church volunteer and parish administrative assistant for many years. “At my dad’s funeral in 2017, the pastor said that when he asked long-time members about (my dad), the description was: ‘Bob wasn’t just on the finance committee…for many years he was the finance committee.” Volunteer and lay staff roles, often overlooked in church metrics, have proven to be some of the most important in sustaining congregations over generations. In seeing her parents’ commitment to these often unheralded and unpaid roles, Lewis learned that the local church is a place not only to be served but to serve, and that the local church is the grounding of American Christianity.
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Following her parents’ commitment, Lewis maintained a connection to her local church despite years of business and sales travel. “Because I relocated so often and traveled 50-80% of the time for much of my career, having a deep faith that is nurtured in my local church community was always an important stabilizing aspect of my life,” Lewis says. I saw this commitment first-hand from Lewis. She was one of the first people to accept me into the Lutheran world of the Twin Cities when I moved back to Minneapolis from California in 2017. She made time to introduce me to others at 1517 Media, she also made sure to invite me to her church and even invited me and my family out for brunch afterwards. Her pride in her local congregation was evident, and even as she prepared to relocate to Seattle, she wanted to leave a legacy and way forward into the future for her Minneapolis congregation. This fit Lewis’ pattern of responsive leadership, leadership that looks toward the future rather than the past. Lewis’ faith life didn’t just happen on Sunday mornings, though. Whenever she faced challenges, she turned to God. In pushing herself forward, even as a strong introvert, she gained strength from leaders around her. When she had to restructure at Augsburg Fortress just four months in, eliminating positions for “a lot of relatively highly paid vice presidents,” Lewis says, “The doubts turned into anger and vicious emails, phone calls and letters.” “I nearly resigned because I had no idea that my beloved church could be so cruel. But that self-confidence that my parents had instilled early on kicked in, and I kept going.” In these moments, when long-time business success and adulation turned to rejection, even from her church family, Lewis
closed the door to her office, just for a few moments. “Whenever I was faced with a challenge, I would quietly pray in my office,” she says. Throughout the challenging path of restructuring Augsburg Fortress, Lewis continued to find strength in the faith she shared with her colleagues. “One of the great sustaining joys was that I was working at a faith-based organization, so I could pray with my colleagues before meetings,” she says. “And, throughout my 16 years in that role, I always knew that there were friends, board members and colleagues who were praying with and for us as we made many, many challenging decisions. I am convinced that 1517 Media would not be here today if our work hadn’t been supported through the prayers of faithful people at many important pivot points.” Despite the challenges she faced in religious publishing, Lewis was grateful for the ELCA’s commitment to gender equity. In her life after retirement from 1517 Media, Lewis remains dedicated to creating space for women on company boards of directors, something she says has unfortunately changed slowly in the secular world. It might surprise readers to learn that Lewis, a hard-charging business leader, says she’s an “off the chart F” on the Myers Briggs scale, meaning that her feelings dictate her actions more than her thoughts do. “I must admit that my feelings would get hurt,” she says. “I tried not to react in kind but of course, didn’t always succeed. And after a deep breath, a prayer for patience and the occasional glass of wine, I tried to learn from such experiences for the future.” Lewis’ honest accounting of how challenges
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impacted her emotions is a demonstration of the way female leaders—whose emotional intelligence often surpasses their male counterparts—can lead in a new way, taking account of emotional leadership as well as thought leadership. Lewis’ emotional intelligence helped her to steward new initiatives while considering how people would respond emotionally and thoughtfully. Additionally, for all church leaders today reading Lewis’ story, her story of emotional impact is important permission-giving. In church work, you may experience moments of hurt feelings, but you, too, can move forward anyway. Jesus was not a proponent of stoicism. Another permission-giving from Lewis is found in her story of being a wife and mother, as well as a business leader. Early in her career, she found that she was moving so much and was so career-focused that relationships were tough, but she also noticed that many men she dated “weren’t particularly interested in being with someone who worked as hard as I did and who (generally) had a more successful career than they did.” Lewis encourages women to lead in the church without the necessity of being married or a mother, expanding the definitions of female church leadership. Lewis’ story of love started later in her life. In 2003, in the midst of her challenging beginning at Augsburg Fortress, she met the Rev. Dr. Rick Rouse. Three years later, they were married, and Lewis went from “single to wife, mother and grandmother in one easy step!” Both Type-A leaders in the church who frequently speak on leadership, Rouse and Lewis are able to help each other balance their work-hard tendencies while also making time for traveling, visiting family and even wine-tasting. They live just 30 minutes
from their two youngest grandchildren, and they’re able to spend lots of time with them on a regular basis. Still, Lewis’ retirement is only a semiretirement. She was recently named chair of the board for Thrivent Federal Credit Union and is actively looking for a for-profit corporate board on which to serve. She also speaks to faith-based groups across the country on leadership, consults for organizations and has launched a personal website called getting2transformation.com. It doesn’t appear her influence in the church—and the world—will be waning anytime soon. As she looks back at a life full of challenges and successes, joys and sorrows, Lewis remembers joy—and shares this wisdom: “First, find work that feeds your spirit! While no job is perfect, finding that place where you are happy and fulfilled most of the time can help one savor successes and get through failures or disappointments. “Make continuous learning a priority. We learn from our successes, and they are more fun than failures. But, if we are attentive, we often learn far more from setbacks if we
take them to heart and really think about how outcomes might be different the next time we are faced with a similar negative situation. “When you are working, give it everything you have! Don’t be afraid of change and be willing to try something different. If you are a leader, encourage this in those with whom you work, as well. “And, when you aren’t working, be good to yourself and those you love. This looks different for each of us. It might mean turning off your cell phone whenever you have dinner together. It might mean family devotional time. It might mean getting enough exercise and sleep. In the 13 years that Rick and I have been married, he has helped me appreciate the benefit offered by most organizations of vacation time. That benefit is in place for a reason; to give you time to rest and refresh. Take it! You will come back to your work in a better frame of mind and with a renewed sense of purpose. There aren’t any awards given at the end of your career for ‘least days of vacation taken.’ “Take the high road, but remember that some of the most challenging decisions you make won’t be crystal clear. Just make
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the best decision you can at the time you are making it with the best data you have available. “Surround yourself with the very best talent you can find. Ideally, bring as much diversity of experience and perspective to the table as you possibly can. Sometimes this is demographic diversity (gender, race, age, sexual preference, etc.) but sometimes it is diversity of experience (finance, ministry, technology, education, etc.) “Pray constantly. God is with you!” Thank you to Beth for her wisdom and for her encouragement!
Angela Denker is a Lutheran pastor and veteran journalist who lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Ben, and two boys, Jacob and Joshua. Her book, Red State Christians: Understanding the Voters who elected Donald Trump, is available for pre-order and launches Aug. 6 with Fortress Press.
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RESPONDING TO MOMENTS OF FAILURE IN MINISTRY By Leigh Finke Few experiences are truly universal—guaranteed to be experienced by every person on earth. It’s possible that there only three: birth, death, and failure. Everybody is born. Everyone will eventually die. And everybody fails. Whatever endeavor you might be working toward, there will inevitably be moments of failure along the way. The question, then, becomes what you’ll do after. In the culture of the United States, failure is a blemish—a red line on our permanent record, reminding us forever that we failed. I found evidence of this in my attempt to report this story. My search for stories of failure in youth and family ministry was ignored by the vast majority of leaders I reached out to. Failure, it seems, was a subject most weren’t interested in broaching. But we need failure. Failure is part of life, a necessary step in our growth. The important part of failure—as thousands of inspirational quotes will tell you—is that it doesn’t represent an end, only an opportunity. Learn, and move on. Failure is a benchmark you pass on the way to success. It’s a cliché, but clichés only exist because they are, in some way, true. And so, in the spirit of success and failure, here are three stories from three pastors and church leaders about how they’ve failed, what they’ve learned, and how they went on to succeed.
FEED THE HUNGRY? Pastor Tim Taylor wanted to teach his youth about hunger and food insecurity. His church in North Carolina was in an affluent neighborhood, and “the youth were not well-versed” with justice issues around
food. So, Taylor planned a retreat focused around the matter. He tells the story: “As a part of the retreat, the Friday evening meal was a meager offering of rice and beans and water. The kids were not happy with this offering and complained that they were hungry and wanted to go out for food. As the lesson went on that evening, it became clear to me that neither the youth or the adult advisers were understanding the point of the retreat. “I was called out of the retreat later that night for a pastoral emergency, and while I was away the adult leaders allowed the youth to walk to a local late-night convenience store for food without supervision. On the way to or back from their food run, the youth did several thousand dollars’ worth of damage to the camp that we were using. And the adult advisers went to bed leaving the kids completely unsupervised until after I returned after 11 p.m.” How did retreat attendees explain this behavior? Taylor heard the defense from adult supervisors that the kids were angry because they were hungry. Taylor says he was told that “I should not take kids on a weekend and not feed them.” Food justice lessons are crucial for young people to comprehend, and Pastor Taylor had brought his group together in an effort to teach this important lesson. He asked them to make a mild sacrifice—eat a little less—and the result was vandalism and outrage. So, what did he learn? The first lesson: Don’t blame the youth. “This weekend taught me that for all future events, I would select adult leaders who had better training in youth ministry.” This 11
includes bringing adults who are part an event into the planning for that event. This helps ensure that all the adults understand the expectations and why the event unfolds as it does. Pastor Taylor did repeat his hunger retreat (at a different church). When future retreats were held, he sent home clear instructions for parents and gave everyone an option to opt out based on the diet restrictions for the weekend. His takeaway: “Failure is a growth opportunity that can lead to success on your next try. Ideas that may have bombed at one time with a particular group may turn out to be a great event the next time it is presented. Just be genuine and prepared. And if it fails, step back and see how it could have been different.”
FAILURE TO LAUNCH Erik Ullestad, director of youth and music at Capitol Hill Lutheran Church in Des Moines, Iowa, wanted to start a Lenten Bible study. Seasonal gatherings are common efforts among youth leaders, and the drive to get young people together, whether for intense study or for socializing, is a primary element of youth and family ministry. At Capitol Hill Lutheran, the objective was simple. Create an opportunity for high school students to gather on Wednesday nights to hang out with peers, talk about life and Lent and—perhaps most appealingly—get a free meal. “It would to be 90 minutes tops,” Ullestad said. “I did all the usual promotion and recruiting, but nobody showed up.” And by nobody, Ullestad means nobody. Scheduling conflicts were the primary issue,
but those few who were free on Wednesdays didn’t want to come if their peers weren’t also going to be participating. In the aftermath of an empty room, Ullestad reflected on what went wrong. “I learned that great program ideas and tenacious promotion don’t guarantee success,” he said. His takeaway: Include participants in the early conversations, and avoid making assumptions about the time and interest of youth. “I learned that I should ask young people what they want and what they can commit to before moving forward with a new initiative.” In other words, just because you build it, does not mean they’ll come.
UNWELCOME GIFTS Michelle Collins was the director of faith formation at Advent Lutheran Church in Melbourne, Florida, when she attempted to create a monthly intergenerational experience. These Generations in Faith Together (GIFT) Sundays were meant to provide opportunities for adults, children, youth and families to “intentionally gather for learning together.” “We worked together to design and execute a brief worship service each month, with different groups designing different parts of the service,” Collins explains. The program was intricately designed. The children would create prayers, the youth would do a skit or sermon-style element
and adults would lead opening and closing liturgy pieces. The GIFT Sundays ran for several months, but they failed to gather much interest or support in the congregation. “Those were low-attendance Sundays by both youth and adults. Adults who would normally attend a Bible study during that time would not attend on GIFT Sundays. Youth who might normally attend youth group on those Sundays would not attend on GIFT Sundays.” Rather than provide time for intergenerational worship, the GIFT program became an interference from the preferred routines of the church’s adults and youth. Collins adds, “Adults did not want to give up their weekly Bible study.” The failure of GIFT Sundays at Advent Lutheran provided many lessons to Collins. It was a highly designed program that required intergenerational support and participation. If any of the age groups didn’t commit, the whole thing wouldn’t work. Collins, reflecting on the experience, summed it up this way: “Just because an idea works in my head, and has the theological and practical support from theories and experts, does not mean it will work.” Her takeaway: Intergenerational faith formation is crucial, but it will only work with the support of all parties. “This commitment has to be shared by more than just the youth and family ministry leaders. Key leadership across the congregation—coun-
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cil, pastors, men’s/women’s group leaders, adult fellowship/study groups, traditional and contemporary worship coordinators— need to also be committed and invested in intentional intergenerational faith formation.”
FAILURE = SUCCESS The above stories are practical failures— strategic errors, perhaps, that could have been avoided with different approaches, better training or more comprehensive planning. And while each of these church leaders has a long record of success, few traits characterize great leadership better than a willingness to admit and reckon with one’s failures. Given an opportunity to pass on a final thought on failure in ministry, Collins, Taylor and Ullestad all echoed the same point: You can’t succeed without. Or, as Erik Ullestad succinctly put it: “I can’t think of any youth ministry success I’ve been a part of that didn’t come as a result of a previous failure.”
Leigh Finke is a reporter living in St. Paul, Minnesota.
SUMMER 2019
3RD TUESDAY CONVERSATION: THE PODCAST 3rdTuesday Conversations are monthly podcasts, produced by the ELCA Youth Ministry Network. 3TC provides opportunities to: • take a break from the daily routine of ministry and grow in our vocation • learn from colleagues and experts in the field • participate in conversation with peers who can reflect on ministry, based on the content discussed 3rd Tuesday Conversations are open to all.
Learn more at elcaymnet.org/3tc 13
ON FAILURE So, I had this friend growing up, whom I’ll call Beast (since that’s what we called him growing up). He and I were confirmed together and hung out all the time. Beast was very science-minded, always building things and telling me how great prime numbers are and so on. At some point in high school, our group of friends got really into Jesus-y things, and we would sit around together playing songs by Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill. My other friend, whom I’ll call Michael (because that’s what we called him growing up), and I began writing our own songs and playing concerts at local churches, and Beast would come along and run sound and carry heavy things (because he was The Beast). Over time, science and religion just didn’t go together for Beast, and he became something of an atheist. Michael and I would expend a lot of energy trying to convince him of the truth of our faith, but we got nowhere. You could call our efforts an epic failure—but it was to be expected. (I mean, other than C.S. Lewis, has anyone ever been argued into believing in God?) In the years since, Beast would sometimes join us on tour, and we’d have long discus-
by George Baum
sions about faith and science and things. I found myself quite comfortable with all these conversations, because at some point I realized, in Beast, God had created a person who was honestly incapable of believing in God. The more I have dwelt on that notion over the years, the more it has informed my entire theology about salvation. Beast could no more believe in the existence of God than he could believe that water freezes at 100 degrees. He just wasn’t built that way. At some point, not too long ago, Beast and I were discussing the need to care for the planet. And he told me it doesn’t really matter to him. (Obviously, any religious argument about stewardship held no sway.) And I said something like, what about your kid? He shrugged and said, “My kid is a non-binary asexual human being who will never have kids. So, once I’m dead, it doesn’t matter to me one bit what happens to the planet.” (As you can see, you never have to guess what Beast is thinking.) In the months since, I’ve wondered if this isn’t another epic fail—not just by me, but by our educational system not teaching ethics, and by our politicians not understanding
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science, and by our religious leaders misunderstanding the gospel. Have we all failed Beast by essentially steering him to logically conclude that he should not care about the environment? I don’t know the answer. But I do not doubt that the window to save the planet is closing faster and faster. I also believe that God will make a new heaven and a new earth—not somewhere else right now, but right here in the future. God is in the business of bringing resurrection out of failure; that’s what God does. Nonetheless, when one of the smartest people I’ve ever known can logically conclude that it doesn’t matter if the world cannot support life in a couple decades, I can’t help but wonder: Is there a fail so epic that God can’t pick it up? George Baum is an Episcopal Priest who lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with his family and their cats. He spent 29 years playing in the band “Lost And Found,” which stopped touring in 2015, but is still available for parties (if they’re good ones).
SUMMER 2019 In addition to paying interest, MIF Term Investments also pay it forward.
Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer in Minneapolis, Minnesota Used an MIF loan to remodel the lowincome apartments the church rents to Togolese refugees, thus making their new homes a whole lot homier.
The Mission Investment Fund offers a wide range of investments for individuals and congregations, including Fixed- and Adjustable-Rate Term Investments with a choice of terms. What’s more, when you invest with MIF, your investment finances loans to ELCA congregations like Christ the Redeemer. To learn more about our investments and loans, contact us at mif.elca.org or 877.886.3522.
IRAs • Term Investments • Demand Investments • Ministry Loans
Mission Investment Fund investments are subject to certain risks. See “Risk Factors” in the MIF Offering Circular. MIF investments are not bank accounts. As securities issued by a nonprofit institution, the investments are not insured by FDIC, SIPC or any other federal or state regulatory agency. The securities are sold only by means of the Offering Circular. This is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described here.
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FAILING FORWARD 16