Failing Forward

So I was at my in-laws house last month while we were in the midst of our partnership development trip and I saw a couple of John Maxwell books on the bookshelf including one I had never heard of , "Failing Forward." I was immediately drawn to the title because anyone who has been around church planting knows that you will see many failures on the road to growth!

Well, I bought the book for our leadership team and we are about to go through it. Honestly, I have not started it yet and I am chomping at the bit. It has been a "season" of failure for myself personally and for The Pathway. Hear me clearly, I don't believe I'm a failure or that The Pathway is a failure. An optimist would say we're in a time where the successes are fewer. However, anyone who knows me knows that I am a realist (i.e. pessimist) and I try to shoot straight. We are in a season of failures. However, I believe God has a plan for these "failures" that will refine us and make us into who we are called to be.

Here's how I would ask you to pray. Pray for myself and my family. We feel like we have failed with Tiffany in so many ways. We understand fully that it is not us who will save Tiffany but the reality is we hoped that she would move out of our house stronger and closer to God than when she came and that's just not the case.

Also pray for our Leadership Team and Community Group Leaders. We had a tough Community Group Leader meeting last night. We came into the night with 5 groups and ended the night with three. That can be seen as failure but because we are confident that it was the Spirit's leading I truly believe that these three will be significantly stronger than the other 5 and will allow us to develop new leaders and multiply more effectively than had we hung onto the groups as if stopping them meant that we had given up on God.

Finally, pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit we would "fail forward." Pray that God would give me direction as the pastor of The Pathway on where to go from here both with my family and as a church. The Spirit is stirring here in Tacoma. It's obvious because there is so much spiritual attack. Pray that the Spirit of God would fall on Tacoma and this time next year I would be blogging about how much stronger we have become through the fire of being refined!