Is our church failing?
Have we failed? Is the church as we know it done? It’s all over the headlines. Membership is down. Fewer and fewer people identify with a church. The rise of the “nones.”
Let me begin with a disclaimer. The ...
Failing faithfully
For the past 20 months, I have worked for a failing company. I came to Columbus right out of college, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was full of energy and excitement at the prospect of a new adventure: I woul...
On failure and Becoming Beloved Community
A conversation with Cherie Bridges Patrick and Amy Howton
As the two of us have partnered to invite others into Becoming Beloved Community, one practice that has been important to us is to intentionally reflec...
Rural churches can thrive beyond numbers
The young pastor said he felt like a failure.
He wasn’t the first rural pastor I’ve heard say this. The center that I direct, located at a small United Methodist college, is focused on working with rural con...
Excerpt from “How to Human: An Incomplete Manual for Living in a Messed-Up World,” by Alice Connor
FAILURE IS THE END OF SOMETHING, BUT IT’S NOT THE END OF EVERYTHING
A few years ago, a friend of mine brought a conference to town called the Epic Fail Pastors’ Conference. They didn’t invite inspirational spe...
Try, fail, adapt
In his book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, Tim Harford brings the disciplines of psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics and economics to make a profoundly simple argument: life...
Farming, failure and faith
Food system failures in 2018 and subsequent recalls in North America included massive quantities of romaine lettuce from the Yuma Arizona growing region; 200 million white eggs distributed by Rose Acres Farms f...
Failure: A pathway to hope and fulfillment
The word, “failure,” is defined in numerous ways and has many synonyms: “lack of success, non-fulfillment, coming to nothing, falling through;” and yet the word conveys a sense of optimism and challenge as well...