Familiar Bible stories can be some of the hardest to read as adults. The children’s Sunday school versions, with their accompanying crafts and upbeat sing-alongs, can obscure the full range of nuance and complexity in a given passage. Take the parable of the sower from Matthew 13.
In all the illustrations I’ve seen, the sun is out, the sower happily scattering seeds over an artfully textured ground. Given the bounty in the “good soil” harvest, the seeds that aren’t so lucky don’t seem to matter. The classroom drawings never fully capture the scope of loss present in the story — the seeds pulverized in the bird’s beak, withered by the sun among the rocks, strangled by the weeds.
Suddenly, this cheery parable fills me with discomfort. Why wasn’t the sower more careful? Surely there are ways she might have minimized the risk and maximized the yield.
I feel frustrated that the sower seems entirely unconcerned about failure. As she walks, she tosses handfuls of seeds to fall where they will. Some will grow; most will not. No attention is given to the soil quality. The sower simply keeps on sowing.
I’ve realized that this reading is challenging me to reconsider the parable’s lesson. Perhaps this story is more about consistent faithfulness and less about engineering results. But that is not what I want to hear in a moment of great change and uncertainty for the mainline church in America.
Congregations are aging. Membership numbers are declining. Churches are closing their doors and selling their properties at an unprecedented rate. This does not seem like the moment to be scattering our limited precious seeds with abandon.
And yet what if this is the exact right moment for the church to be taking risks and embracing failure?
Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn lead and teach at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. They help organizations innovate in a rapidly changing world by cultivating cultures of experimentation — what, for the church, could be seen as the spiritual disciplines of listening, humility, courage and holy playfulness all rolled into one.
In their book “Ideaflow,” they write, “What are the chances you’ll make an interesting discovery doing something in the exact same way you always have?”
I wonder what this imagination might do for the church. If doing what we always have is no longer working, could this be the moment to experiment and try something new? Sometimes an experiment will produce 30 times what was sown. Sometimes an experiment will fail. Often it takes many failures before a successful solution is found. Recall the story of the light bulb.
I believe failure is essential for vibrant congregations. But failing is scary. In order to survive, the church must create a culture where failure is expected, welcomed and even celebrated.
Utley and Klebahn offer some suggestions on creating this kind of culture.
First, individuals and groups need to feel a sense of safety in order to take risks. When we’re afraid that we’ll fail — or that we or our ideas will be judged, laughed at or dismissed — our creative ability withers. Our brains (and that infamous entity called the church committee) are masters at naming why new ideas won’t work. While this instinct can keep us safe, it can also be wrong. We don’t always know where the good soil is. Scattering with abandon creates opportunities for learning and even surprise.
To scatter with abandon, shift the goal from finding “good” ideas to simply getting as many ideas out on paper as possible. Get playful. Bring snacks and colorful Post-it notes. Ask a middle schooler to join the conversation. Pull your chairs into a circle or move to a space with lots of light and big posters on the walls. At this stage, the goal is quantity over quality. The only rule is that ideas cannot be judged or deliberated.
Initially, ideas might come slowly and feel obvious. Keep going! One leader who uses the ideaflow process told Utley and Klebahn that it’s always excruciating for her — but only at the start. “As soon as she gives herself permission to write something truly outrageous, ridiculous or just plain illegal,” they write, “the floodgates open.”
Second, make space in the schedule to fail. Utley and Klebahn write, “To learn something new, you must try new things, and experiments always have a risk of failure. To take that kind of risk regularly, you can’t chase 99 percent efficiency every moment of your day.”
Not every new idea will bring in more young people or help balance the budget. But when framed with intention, every new idea is a learning opportunity for a congregation. Start talking about the congregation’s latest experiment and the learnings it produced, regardless of how well it achieved the anticipated results.
Utley and Klebahn note Thomas Edison’s response to a friend who lamented Edison’s lack of results on a project despite his hard work: “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.”
Not every project needs to be “the solution” as long as we are able to learn from it.
A few Sundays ago, I heard a pastor retell the parable of the sower and recount the harvest it produced as “thirty-, sixty- and even one hundredfold.” That’s how Mark 4 tells the story, but it’s not what Matthew says. Instead of saving the largest, most remarkable yield for the end, Matthew’s version says the yield was “in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty” (Matthew 13:23 NRSVue) — concluding with the smallest. Even the smallest yield is worthy of note, Matthew seems to be saying.
Failure happens when we take risks. Our call is to be faithful sowers who scatter with abandon.
And yet what if this is the exact right moment for the church to be taking risks and embracing failure?
On Sunday, Feb. 16, people gathered after worship in our church’s fellowship hall. It looked, in many ways, like a regular potluck. A large pot of soup was set on the buffet, someone dropped off a bag of clementines, and people brought lots of baked goods. As the food came in, folks who know our church kitchen as well as their own pulled out plates and serving utensils.
There was a mix of people — some of the 125 folks were members of our congregation, but many were neighbors, friends and co-workers. Word had gotten out.
Earlier that week, we sent out an all-church email with the subject line “Organizing Against Cruelty.” It was one way we could respond as the church to the radical disruption in our community caused by the new presidential administration.
Our church, a 375-member PCUSA congregation, is located about 3 miles from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We have 15 to 20 families in our church whose livelihood depends on work for the CDC, which was among the first targets of spending cuts by the new administration. The agency had become a “public enemy” during COVID because it advocated for restrictions on personal freedom in order to save lives. Now I was receiving emails and text messages from people afraid of losing their jobs.
You don’t cut “an agency.” The CDC is not nameless or faceless. It is a collection of rather remarkable human beings. I am a pastor for some of them. They sing in our choir, play games with our youth group and lead our congregation as elders. They also keep humanity safe from illness. In my experience, they are people of deep faith, who love God and others — commitments that align with their work at the CDC.
My CDC-affiliated congregants were not prepared for this. They all know that when a president is elected, priorities can change; several had shared stories about job pivots under a new administration. But they are stunned that a president could demonstrate such disregard for something as foundational to the common good as public health, and they mourn the loss of the programs they have worked so hard to build.
“Those of us in global health and development are not in it for the money or to push some sort of radical agenda. We want to ensure that people do not die of things like contaminated drinking water, measles, polio, mosquito bites or HIV,” one of our CDC-affiliated congregants told me.
The people I spoke to for this essay asked to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions.
Virtually all their work has been put on hold as they await impending cuts. There has been no explanation from the administration about where there is waste or fraud at the CDC or why the positions being eliminated are not essential to public health — some of the reasons the administration has given for the cuts. It’s randomly inflicted harm.
“The field of global health and development is being decimated like a toddler swiping at a Jenga tower,” one congregant said. “I feel such grief over the lives of U.S. citizens and people across the world that will be lost or irreparably harmed by these changes.”
They are grieving the loss of lives and the loss of programs that have proved to work. They also are grieving the loss of their vocation. Each knows their calling is aligned with the ministry of Jesus, an itinerant healer, who made healing the sick a sign of the inauguration of the kingdom of God.
“My career is truly how I live out my faith — using my hands and feet to care for those whom the world would rather forget,” one told me.
Another said, “I’m a resilient person. My job is hard — I travel to places where I deal with health emergencies, and so I work all the time with people experiencing real trauma. I can deal with a lot of things — I usually just put my head down and think, ‘We’ll get through this; it can’t go on forever.’ But this feels different. I’ve never had my fundamental worth so questioned.”
What can a church do in a moment like this? Pastoral care, for one. Not only the one-on-one engagement with the pastors but also the strength that comes from belonging to a community of people who love you. That is the real help in a time of trouble. We need to be seen. We need to feel valued.
When authority figures question your worth and have the power to make you feel worthless, you need a community of people that affirms a truer narrative: “The work you do is amazing. You are amazing.”
Some of our church’s retired members are among those who now stand outside the gates of the CDC holding signs saying “We love the CDC” and “Protect Public Health.” Several people have mentioned how much this small gesture of support buoys their spirits.
Our finance team at church has a reserve fund ready to help members who lose their jobs pay their bills and rent. We are also quietly preparing for a loss of income if our CDC members are fired.
The Organizing Against Cruelty community gathering was a second kind of response, bringing people together to act. In the first few weeks of the new administration, many people expressed something like, “This feels terrible. What can I do?” Older adults especially may not be online and may not be plugged in to networks for action and activism.
At the gathering, we invited people to share resources with one another — one hungry person telling another hungry person where to find bread.
We talked about how to contact our legislators and what groups are active in our community. We set up breakout rooms for specific needs — support for transgender poeple, caring for immigrant neighbors — and a room for federal employees to share their experiences and talk without fear of recrimination.
While this role for the church, as a steward of the power of grassroots organizing, is important, there is another, perhaps paradoxical role the church can play: we can hold our human suffering as part of a larger story.
One of my CDC members said, “Lent always feels timely, but this year, my soul desperately needs it. Observing Lent helps prepare for loss, and the reminder that Christians have been marking this season through different crises and times of fear and change is welcome at this moment.
“We don’t have to do everything perfectly, but we do have to take care of each other, knowing we will all meet the same end that Jesus did on the cross.”
Not all suffering is redemptive, and the suffering of my congregants and other federal workers right now feels particularly unnecessary. But the church, when we are faithful, helps us understand that our suffering is woven into the great story of God’s love.
Our sensitivity to this suffering helps us be agents of healing. When I asked one CDC employee how she is holding up, she said, “It’s awful. … But I know that I am going to be fine.”
She told me about her volunteer service with a partner organization supporting refugee families and said, “There are so many people who are much more vulnerable in the face of this cruelty than I am. It’s them I’m worried about. I’m going to be taking care of them.”
You need a community of people that affirms a truer narrative: “The work you do is amazing. You are amazing.”
Chicken Little — that prophet of doom — creates mass hysteria with the ominous proclamation, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
The panicked frenzy that ensues in the well-known folktale is both unfortunate and instructive for incredulous readers who are privy to reality: this apocalyptic declaration and dread of Armageddon is, in fact, sparked by a falling acorn.
Often, the story of Chicken Little resonates with our experiences as pastors or leaders in congregations where problems are pervasive. Financial stress, aging facilities, discord among members, technological challenges, scarcity of resources, lack of volunteers, crises in the community — these all have the potential to keep leaders pacing the floor at night.
Congregational leaders and their teams can find themselves in a perpetual posture of chasing and triaging problems, becoming deflated and exhausted because they never reach a point where everything seems to be fixed. The pessimism that wafts through the air of the organization is more insidious than the problems themselves, creating a culture of despair where everyone seems to be glum and on edge, waiting for the sky to fall.
Pastors don’t surrender to God’s call because of an insatiable desire to simply “put out fires,” so remaining inspired as visionary leaders under such circumstances is extremely challenging. The yes we give to God, generally after intense, internal wrestling, is because we believe, as professed in the simple grace prayed over our meals as children, “God is great, and God is good.”
Pure, unrelenting hope is found in this great and good God who will perform wonders to drive out evil and bring about God’s good purposes in this world. This conviction ignites a fire and passion for participating in God’s redemptive work. After all, we are proclaimers of the euangelion — the good news — who seek to galvanize others around a common dream for good.
In my own context, it was our compelling vision to disciple the next generation that opened the eyes of two staff members to the possibility of outside funding toward this effort. Lilly Endowment Inc. was seeking applicants for its Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative; they saw the alignment with our vision and encouraged us to apply.
We had never pursued a grant of this magnitude before, but our faith in the power of God led us to magnify possibilities over potential impediments. We prayed, applied, prayed some more. In God’s abundance, we were notified that the church was awarded a $1.25 million grant!
I share this to encourage any pastor or leader who is doing the good work of galvanizing God’s people to pursue good. Continue pointing and looking upward, because God’s blessings still rain down.
Orienting our congregations and ministries around promising possibilities and expectation of good is more personally rewarding and congregationally enriching than staying in a constant orbit of the ominous. This orientation, which really is a reorientation for many congregations, does not happen on its own but rather through great intentionality on the part of the leaders in shaping a culture of expectancy and hope.
Working strategically in this vein is critically important, because the culture of our organizations will determine whether we are prepared to receive God’s generosity or whether God’s goodness will be missed or dismissed by doubts and fears. As evidenced in Numbers 13:25-33 when the negative report of the spies infects the Israelites’ hearts with doubt, it is possible to be on the edge of experiencing the miraculous and talk yourself out of seeing the good. How many times has this happened in church business meetings?
Leaders, therefore, must first cast and continue to reiterate a God-size vision that is rooted in a deep conviction of the truth of God’s powerful ability, as communicated in Ephesians 3:20 (ESV): “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us …”
As nervous as this might make leaders, who are equally susceptible to being overly pragmatic or pessimistic, such a vision supplants problems as the new goal to run after and inspires congregants to offer their gifts and talents to see it come to fruition. A compelling vision can also be the seed for collective creativity in addressing challenges.
Yes, problems will arise, but problems can be viewed as barriers to overcome in pursuit of a greater purpose rather than as the purpose themselves. And problems can become further impetus for expectancy that God will “show up and show out.”
After casting a vision, our proclamation must set the people’s gaze upon God and encourage them to look with anticipation for God to give provision for the vision. We should keenly focus people’s hearts and minds on God’s omnipotence.
Acknowledging God’s power challenges our own doubts and insecurities. If God’s potency surpasses our impotence, then we cannot tailor dreams to fit what we deem conceivable or possible in our strength. This power causes the seams of our intellect to come undone, and the only appropriate response is awe and wonder; what we cannot explain or fully comprehend, we must simply believe.
Finally, our belief should be heard in our corporate prayers and seen in our response when God answers them. We must not be like the church that, praying for the imprisoned Peter in Mary’s house, decried Rhoda as being “out of [her] mind” when she reported that the liberated Peter was knocking at the door, their prayers answered (Acts 12:15).
Hope-filled congregations don’t pray puny prayers. As we pray big prayers, we must also encourage our people to open the door when God’s answer shows up. Through casting vision, proclaiming God’s power, and praying with expectancy, leaders are encouraging their congregations to look up — not at a falling sky — but at a good and great God.
Working strategically in this vein is critically important, because the culture of our organizations will determine whether we are prepared to receive God’s generosity or whether God’s goodness will be missed or dismissed by doubts and fears.
For almost a decade, I’ve enthusiastically followed Streetlights’ journey as the organization’s innovative Latino leaders re-imagined the audio Bible, infusing it with the vitality of hip-hop beats and showcasing diverse and authentic voices. Their artistic vision and dedication to placed-at-risk youth speaks directly to my heart.
Born from a vision in a basement 17 years ago, Streetlights has grown into a thriving nonprofit with an $800,000 annual operating budget, 75,000 newsletter subscribers and 430,000 app users worldwide, according to its leadership. It has achieved international influence, reaching 18 million plays of its audio Bible — currently in Spanish and English — with plans for more languages. Beyond the audio Bible, its initiatives also include the Corner Talk teaching video ministry and a music ministry through its touring band, ALERT312.
How Streetlights expanded from basement dream to international reality offers a powerful learning opportunity for us all, including for my own role as an executive director. Since visiting the Streetlights studio in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin community last fall, I’ve gleaned valuable lessons in organizational leadership and capacity building from its inspiring story of collaboration.
Esteban Shedd, Streetlights’ co-executive director, said his vision emerged from the disconnect many youth in his community felt toward the Bible. They found it inaccessible — difficult to understand and hard to relate to culturally — with a lack of engaging resources. Shedd, inspired by the scripture “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17 NKJV), envisioned a culturally relevant, bilingual audio Bible for the digital-native generation. That led to the development of artistically rich digital tools that engage young people from urban communities in their heart language.
Shedd patiently refined his vision over two years, supported by prayer, discussions with leaders and family, and in-depth research about resource production. He waited for the right moment — confirmed by the Spirit and community support — balancing the demands for action with the wisdom to nurture the vision, anticipating when peace and faith would align.
The catalyst came from a friend at GRIP Outreach for Youth, a faith-based nonprofit working with Chicago’s young people, who suggested that Shedd speak with that organization’s executive director. This conversation ignited Streetlights’ inception, leading to a series of conversations and careful planning with GRIP’s board. Bolstered by their support, including covering his salary for a month, Shedd was offered precious time and space. GRIP evolved into an incubator for Streetlights.
But, Shedd said, it was a challenging decision for some in GRIP’s leadership, given that GRIP, too, works with urban youth in underresourced neighborhoods. The initial wariness that the partnership might strain GRIP’s limited budget eased after a board member highlighted how Shedd’s culturally relevant Bible project aligned with GRIP’s mission, offering new ways to serve youth.
Shedd said those who were hesitating realized that the organizations’ missions weren’t separate but an opportunity for unity; they came to see GRIP as part of a larger, interconnected ecosystem. Strategic planning for the partnership began, focused on communicating clearly and engaging stakeholders, crafting a framework that equipped GRIP to effectively navigate and adapt in this new role.
This was also a leap of faith for Shedd. Newly married and juggling his roles as rapper and hip-hop group leader, he committed to Streetlights despite the economic uncertainty for his family. Through prayerful consideration, he and his wife found peace, understanding that vision and conviction are crucial in Christian leadership and may precede funding. Trusting in God’s call and in GRIP’s leadership, Shedd entered into a mutually affirming partnership, where he knew that his vision would be honored, with no attempts to change, control or compete against it.
GRIP’s support meant more than guidance — the executive director and board offered spiritual backing, mentorship, friendship and essential connections for the work ahead. Shedd vividly remembers Scott Grzesiak, GRIP’s founder and then-executive director, providing unwavering encouragement during uncertain times, which was vital to persevering.
In that crucial first month, Shedd devoted countless hours to developing Streetlights’ business plan, capturing its vision and how it would fit within GRIP’s fiscal umbrella. Thanks to the supportive environment provided by GRIP, Shedd was able to avoid some of the typical challenges that organizational leaders face — playing multiple roles and wearing various hats, risking feelings of isolation amid a flurry of meetings, swinging between exhaustion and exhilaration as the vision takes shape.
During this phase, Shedd harnessed his skills as a hip-hop group leader for strategic planning and building social capital. He laid the groundwork for capacity building and sustainability by earning trust from leaders, forging connections in Bible publishing and engaging in effective fundraising. And he wisely focused on community and collaboration, as he sought advocates both within and beyond GRIP.
Shedd initiated scaling efforts, taking on odd jobs with friends to contribute toward the salary for Streetlights’ second team member and leveraging his artist community ties for a digital audio Bible demo’s fundraising. This pivotal first year set Streetlights on a path toward resilience and significant growth, focused on mobilizing resources, managing finances and coordinating volunteers.
What began as a one-month commitment became a nine-year dynamic partnership between GRIP and Streetlights. Within GRIP’s abundant and creative embrace, Shedd and his co-leaders, Loren La Luz and Aaron López, transformed Streetlights into an autonomous organization. As with Acts 2:44-47, Streetlights and GRIP united under a common vision, sharing resources, celebrating collective successes and meeting their community’s needs with joy and gratitude toward God.
The partnership between Streetlights and GRIP exemplifies the power of unity, faith, generosity and a mutual commitment to enhancing capacity. It underscores how organizations can come together to create transformative outcomes.
Streetlights’ journey inspires me to broaden my organizational leadership views, sparking questions like: What resources do we have to empower others? Where can we find partnerships to build essential support systems and strengthen our capacity?
Rooted in Christian values, such an ethos of collaboration reminds us we are not meant to tackle this journey alone. Together, we grow stronger, shaping a future that transforms capacity building, where collective progress and innovation become our common goal.
