Risking Failure… Experimenting Explained
By Bob Armstrong, Director of Partnership for Missional Church

Click here to return to the Church Innovations web site.

This article is a continuation of the newsletter series on the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC). We began with a “50 000 feet” overview in the March 2007 newsletter, followed by an article on “What is Missional Church” in June of 2007 and a brief overview of the first year of PMC in the September 2007 newsletter. The series continued with a brief overview of the second year of PMC in December 2007 newsletter.

People entering Phase 2 of the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) express their concern about “experimenting,” viewing it as extremely technical, scientific and daunting! However, in PMC experimenting is much more natural and attainable. In fact, it is what you already do when you are learning something new. You just haven’t been thinking of it as experimenting.

Have you ever seen a very young child sitting in its highchair dropping food on the floor? Spoonful after spoonful, watching it fall, the child is learning about gravity by experimenting. Will it fall down every time? Will it go sideways sometimes or upwards at other times? We all learn through repeated activities in which we are not certain about the outcome but are open to observe and consider the results. Like the child, parents may also learn things they never expected. That too is learning through experimenting.

What are some of the ways that we experiment? When a young man works up the courage to tell the girl he’s dating that he loves her, he is conducting an experiment. Will she return the sentiment? Parents decide to take their overscheduled teenagers out to a sit down restaurant, wondering, “Can we have a conversation if we have time together away from the distractions of home”? A manager wonders whether some additional personal attention will help a promising but ineffectual new recruit improve. An unchurched couple walks into a sanctuary for the first time, wondering, “Will the people here be as friendly as we hope? Or will they be as closed as we fear?” You add electric guitars and drums to worship, wondering whether the change will bring in more new people than you lose because the old-timers become irritated. Each of these is an experiment.

An experiment is conducting some intentional action when the outcome is uncertain, but it is done with an attitude of openness to observe the results and learn through reflection.

While the emphasis in Phase 1 of PMC is on developing the skill of listening, PMC congregations also conduct many experiments. Will people agree to serve as listening leaders? Will members of congregations have anything to say if someone came and listened? Will God actually speak in a way that can be heard if they slow down to Dwell in the Word? During the Friday evening gatherings of every PMC cluster meeting, the steering teams report on what they have been doing since the last event and reflect on how God has been at work. In this way the entire cluster becomes a learning and discerning community.

In Phase 2 congregations are asked to become intentional in learning through action and reflection. This process of action and reflection is extended experimenting. Sometimes it may take place as a formal project. At other times it may be as simple as observing what congregational members begin to do when the leadership directs attention to the missional challenge God has placed before them. In fact many aspects of the activities in Phase 2 are designed to promote experimenting through action-reflection.

The Mission Engagement Team (MET) created in each congregation takes ownership and initiative in response to the missional challenge that was identified by the steering team and governing board at the end of Phase 1. This shift of limited responsibility and leadership from the clergy and governing board to a group of lay people is itself an experiment. How well will the MET function within the life of this congregation? In what ways does it enhance or inhibit missional engagement?

A first step in understanding the missional challenge is identifying the ‘strangers’ that Christ is sending to the congregation. Plunging and Hospitality Groups build relational bridges to these strangers with the intention of forming community similar to the 70 who were sent to the towns and places of Galilee. These efforts are experiments because the outcome is anything but certain. Yet we know this: no matter how the strangers respond, God will always reveal something new.

Typically the MET will also invite the congregation to engage the larger community through intentionally designed programs. These pilot projects are test-runs of well researched and constructed responses to the missional challenge. But they are also experiments because the outcome is less than certain and the primary goal is to learn more about how God is at work within the congregation and community.

Often the most fruitful and unexpected experiments emerge spontaneously from congregation members themselves. Incredibly, when people who sincerely care about God’s preferred and promised future become aware of the missional challenge, they don’t always wait for someone in authority to organize a program. Many just do what seems obvious to them. One parish discovered in Phase 1 that its city’s Fourth of July parade ended with a community-wide picnic on the church grounds. For years the church building had been locked during the celebration and no congregation members were even present. This year several members decided, on their own, to attend the picnic and invited other members to join them.

Admittedly not every experimental effort is “helpful.” Yet there is always something to learn. So the MET is constantly scanning the congregation for signs of how people are responding to God’s missional call and inviting reflection and discernment. The Holy Spirit’s most promising movement just might be discovered in a very unlikely place and time – like the relationship that develops between an elderly woman of the congregation and special needs students in a tutoring program there.

I have a friend who teaches ice skating. She says that it is much easier to teach children than adults because children are not afraid of falling. It becomes much more difficult to learn when we are afraid of making a mistake and falling. To learn we must try things when the outcome is uncertain. We must be willing to take risks. Sometimes we will stumble or fail. With prayerful reflection, however, these become “excellent failures” which God uses to lead us forward.

At the end of Phase 2 of PMC, the MET presents a Missional Action Plan to the governing board for approval and implementation. Despite a year of development, the results of this plan are not guaranteed. It is still an experiment requiring further reflection. Experimenting is part of the process of discerning the Missional Vocation of each congregation in PMC. This is the work of Phase 3.

Bob Armstrong is CI’s director of Partnership for Missional Church.