Reading Time: 3 minutes

Most of us don’t like the idea of failing and I understand why. It sounds negative, defeating, and deflating. It’s all we can do to even hear the word but to make it our most important resolution of the new year? That’s just plain insanity.

Or is it?

Isn’t the famous definition of insanity “doing the same things while expecting different results?” If that’s true (and it is), and you’ve spent most of your life trying to avoid failure, then perhaps embracing failure could be just the thing that propels you into your best year yet.

Here are 5 reasons why:

Failure isn’t fatal but the fear of failure is

I’m not going to suggest that we should start liking failure, but I am going to suggest that we stop fearing it. Have you ever wondered how many inventions, ideas or books were never created just because of the fear of failure? In a culture full of participation trophies, perhaps the best thing we could do is teach the next generation how to try, fail, and survive. I’m convinced that nothing would strengthen our nation more than a healthy dose of failure because failure brings us to a critical point of decision.

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Failure forces us to decide if it’s worth it

One of my favorite proverbs is found in the Bible, and it simply says that even though a righteous man falls seven times, he gets back up. The obvious questions, of course, is why get back up if you keep getting knocked down? The answer is just as obvious: because whatever we’re fighting for is worth it. Failure is what brings us to that critical point where we decide whether or not we’re going to stay in and keep at it even though it would be easier to step out and quit.

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Failure makes us find a better way

You failed, and that failure helped you realize that the fight, the journey, the pursuit, is worth it. Now what? You dig in and determine to find a better way. I love the story about Thomas Edison’s reaction when the plant where he worked on his inventions burned to the ground. He calmly said to his son, “We just got rid of a lot of rubbish.” While he lost almost a million dollars in the fire, his team went on to produce ten times that much in the year after the fire. When we accept setbacks as setups, we unlock the power of this truth: our best days almost always follow our worst days.

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Failure allows us to succeed with humility

Perhaps the biggest benefit to resolving to fail forward this year is this: when you do succeed (and you will succeed!), people will actually want to celebrate with you because your failures will allow you to succeed with humility. Let’s face it, nobody likes a success who is still convinced that it’s all about them, and there is nothing like a dose or two of failure to remind all of us that success hinges on a whole lot more than our abilities and creativity.

My advice to you (and to myself) is simple: dream big, fail often, and never stop pursuing the success that is waiting just on the other side of the blow that knocked you down.

So get up, dust off, and be thankful that you’re one failure closer to the fulfillment of the dream.

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

Yesterday I ran intervals. Sometimes they’re called repeats, but most runners just call them evil.

They’re short. There’s usually a lot of them (in my case, 10 sets). And they almost always get harder the more of them you do.

What this means is simply that interval training is something that sounds a lot better than it actually feels, and if we’re honest, it doesn’t even really sound that great. At least not to runners.

“I’m not a runner and now, I never will be!” I hear you. But you don’t have to be a runner to learn some important lessons that can help you be a better leader.

(In all honesty, you don’t even have to be a leader to learn them, but if you are, knowing these principles will help you understand the people you are leading.)

You can’t run fast forever, but you’ll run faster when you know you can rest.

Most leaders struggle with pace. Either we’re always on or we’re on the mend from trying to be always on. But what I love about interval training is that I can run at a much faster pace because I know that a recovery interval is coming and that recovery interval is just as important as the running one. In fact, the recovery actually enables me for the next sprint.

It’s no different in leading people, whether it’s your family, your church or your business. You can’t give 100% effort 100% of the time. You’ve got to have periods of rest and recovery, and when you make that a normal part of your rhythm, so will the people following you. Stop pushing yourself – and others – to do what we were never made to do.

Learn the secret of the Sabbath. Even God rested on the 7th day, and because He’s God, we know that He didn’t actually require rest. Instead, He was modeling the rhythm of rest.

[Tweet “You can’t run fast forever, but you’ll run faster when you know you can rest.”]

What makes us better usually doesn’t feel like it’s making us better.

I don’t know a lot of runners who actually wake up on interval days and scream, “Yay! Today I get to almost throw up!!” That would be crazy. We don’t like the training, but all of us love the benefit of the training: better cardio, lower resting heart rate, quicker turnover, faster pace, passing more people at the end of races. You know, the important stuff.

But in the middle of an interval, it doesn’t feel like you’re getting better. It actually feels like you’re going to meet Jesus. Interval training teaches me that I can’t lead based on my emotion because so much of what I need to do to improve as a leader won’t feel good when I’m doing it.

Like Jesus, I’ve got to see past the pain in order to push through the pain. The writer of Hebrews tells us that “for the joy set before Him (He) endured the cross.” One of the weaknesses of the current church culture is an inability to handle pain and if we want to change that culture, we’ll need to change ourselves.

Trust me, what makes us better usually doesn’t feel like it’s making us better. But it is.

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Last one, best one

One of the highlights of my children’s middle school years was coaching their cross-country teams, and if you asked the runners on those teams what I said during every interval workout, they would say 4 words: last one, best one.

We tend to slow down the more tired we get, but in a race, the goal is actually to run what are commonly called “negative splits.” A negative split means that you ran the second half of a race faster than you ran the first half, and in order to pull that off, you’ve got to learn how to run fast on tired legs.

How do you do that? You guessed it. You run each interval in the workout faster than the previous one and then, just when you feel like you can’t do it any faster, you do. You dig deep and find more in you then you thought you had and you make the last one the best one.

Most of us are pretty good at starting well – we join the gym, read the forward to a new book, determine to journal or blog – but the reality is that starting isn’t all that hard. Finishing is. And finishing better than we started is even harder. But if we’ll learn to trust the passion in us more than the pain in us, we’ll find ourselves surging at the end instead of finishing on fumes.

[Tweet “We’re pretty good at starting well, but starting isn’t all that hard. Finishing is.”]

Are you in the middle of a tough stretch as a leader? Do you feel like I did yesterday in the 8th, 9th and 10th interval of my workout? Let me leave you with these encouraging words from another leader who also found himself in that place from time to time. I pray that these would become your words, too.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

You will reap. It’s a promise, and the only thing required of you is that you simply keep going.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It’s Monday morning, the sanctuary lights are out, the reports are coming in from the service(s) your church held yesterday, and you’re starting to weigh the pros and cons of resigning as you watch the sermon preached at the megachurch about the same scripture you preached from to 50 people yesterday.

I get it. Mondays can be brutal, even if everything went well yesterday, and even if you talk yourself into staying on for another week, the idea of maintaining at your current level can start to seem so appealing. But it’s not. Maintaining can never be a permanent solution any more than treading water can be the primary technique for swimming. Sure, it may be a way to rest and catch your breath, (How many are thankful for seasons of rest? Yes, I see that hand, and that hand, and those 2 in the back!) but it can never be a sustainable answer for ministry, especially when the kingdom of God is always advancing and His offensive team is the local church.

Let’s face it, God wants our churches to grow more than that conference speaker wants us to buy books.

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In order to keep myself from getting lost in the weeds of all the “next steps” and “next level” information out there, I’ve developed a little acrostic for the word LEVEL that helps me remember what it takes personally and organizationally to level up.

A word before I share it: I don’t pastor a megachurch, nor do I have a book deal. The church I pastor – The Gathering – is in a small town in the south, just turned 6 years old, and over those 6 years, we’ve seen slow, steady growth from 20 to an average weekly attendance that fluctuates between 275-300. Sometimes we hear “next level” and think that it means an overnight jump from hundreds to thousands, but leveling up often happens by the tens, and these 5 things are required if you and I want to keep growing.

[Tweet “Sometimes we think “next level” is going from hundreds to thousands, but it often happens by tens.”]

Leadership

Someone has to go first, and that’s probably going to be you and me. If I’m asking my church to give more because we have a kingdom opportunity, then I’m going to need to up my giving game first. Leaders who say it but don’t do it are lecturers, and we all know how much people enjoy lectures.

[Tweet “Leaders who say it but don’t do it are lecturers, and we all know how much people enjoy lectures.”]

Examination

If we’re going to get to the next level, we probably need to have some idea about what’s blocking our way. The churches and individuals I know who are always growing are also always examining themselves. They ask questions. They examine good systems because they want the best systems. Like a mountain climber, they study the next section in order to plan the best route to take. We don’t need to be afraid to poke the process a little in order to find the best path.

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Vision

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many leaders talk about wanting to go to the next level and yet they never surround themselves people who have been there. You cannot go to the next level if you haven’t seen it. We’ve got to have a vision of where we’re going if we have any hope of getting there. When I coached cross-country, I always told my teams to run uphill by looking uphill. See where you’re going and eventually, you’ll be where you’re going. Vision is powerful, and it’s our job as leaders to have it and cast it.

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Effort

You’re willing to go first, you’ve examined the obstacles to get there, and you’ve even envisioned what it will look like at the top, but none of that matters if you never take a step. It’s easier to stay where you are, but the fruit is always higher and out on a limb, and it takes work to get there. How ridiculous would it be for football teams to huddle, call a play, pump each other up, and then never snap the ball? I hate to say it, but many church leaders are only good in the huddle, and that won’t take you to the next level. It will, though, keep everyone in the huddle.

[Tweet “Many leaders are only good in the huddle, and that won’t take you to the next level.”]

Loss

I struggled with this last one, but it’s reality and so it needs to be included. There is a price to pay in order to level up. It will cost us, and until we’re willing to lose what we have now, we won’t be able to gain anything later. In our personal lives, there is a cost to grow. Maybe it’s less time sleeping for more time reading, or giving up a favorite Netflix show in order to take an online class. Maybe a friend won’t embrace your passion for self-improvement and stops texting. Organizationally, you and I may see people leave because they love the current level more than the one we’re pursuing. We don’t lose people because those people are bad; we lose them because not everyone desires the same climb. But no matter what level you’re pursuing, make no mistake: you have to give up in order to go up. As Jesus said, it’s better to count that cost before you even start, because quitting in the middle of a climb isn’t always the best option.

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There you are. Five things that help me flesh out what it takes to get to the next level. Hopefully, they’ll benefit you, too, as you pursue higher ground.