Fear of Failure

In today’s world, we have become so focused on success and numbers, which we tend to, have this overwhelming sense of pressure to perform. Sometimes there is so much pressure to perform that we are afraid to try new approaches to ministry for fear of failure. We must overcome this fear and find the freedom to try new approaches, for even if we fail, we can learn valuable lessons that often times would not be learned unless we did fail. Some of the best lessons learned are in fact learned through the experience of failure. In his book, Charles Manz gives an example how a middle manager in a large corporation made a half million dollar mistake. This person feared that his mistake would definitely lead to his termination and that it would haunt him for the rest of his life in business. His boss had a different point of view; he looked at the mistake as an investment into this man’s future in the company. He said the mistake would have been to let the guy go, instead they sat down and discussed the mistake and all that could be learned from it. This resulted in a valuable teaching moment that was then passed on from the middle manager to the rest of the workers. The whole company became stronger as a result. Fear of failure resulting in retribution was replaced with attention to detail and cooperative learning. Jesus always built up his disciples; he never tore them down or fired them for making mistakes. We too should embrace this idea. The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus: Practical Lessons for Today by Charles C. Manz (Paperback - Sep 1, 2005