10. People Stop Helping
Why would congregation members want to invest their time, money and energy into a church where the pastor has basically told them “there’s no hope—after all, if others are to blame for our failures, nothing we do will make any difference.”
11. The Grasshopper in the Mirror Must Be Killed First
This specific issue (not blaming others for our perceived failures) is the reason I titled my book The Grasshopper Myth. So I’ll quote myself from the last chapter:
Kill the grasshopper.
Bury its dead, rotting carcass deep in an unmarked desert grave on the far side of the Jordan.
But know this. It’s a stubborn little beast. It won’t die easily. It can’t be wished away or even prayed away. Although prayer is an essential part of this.
Life doesn’t go where you want it to go—it goes where you tell it to go. And you tell it where to go with every decision you make—large and small.
Stop making grasshopper choices. Stop living on defense. Say “no” to saying “no.”
Your biggest problem in ministry and in life isn’t that you’ll make a mistake, but that you’ll be consumed by the fear of making a mistake. That’s what happened to the 10 faithless Hebrew spies. The giants and walls they saw weren’t bigger than the ones Joshua and Caleb saw. Their biggest challenges weren’t external, they were internal. They couldn’t see they weren’t slaves any more.
It’s one of the oldest sayings in history. It’s easier to take the people out of Egypt than it is to take Egypt out of the people. That’s where The Grasshopper Myth started.
I began discovering who I’m not on the day I told my staff, “We need to stop thinking like a big church.” I didn’t know who I was yet. But removing the burden of who I was not was one of the most liberating experiences of my life.
If you’re not sure who you are yet, that’s OK. Start by declaring who you’re not.
—The Grasshopper Myth, Chapter 15 —Becoming an Ex-Grasshopper
12. Accepting Appropriate Blame Is Often the First Step to Finding Real Answers
Let’s not close this out without acknowledging that accepting appropriate blame is not the same as walking around with a defeatist, self-hating attitude.
Accepting appropriate blame means realizing that I make mistakes. Inappropriate blame says I am a mistake.
But once we’ve accepted appropriate blame, then we can start looking, assessing, finding and implementing better ideas.
Let’s find solutions instead of excuses.
So what do you think? What are some other good reasons not to blame others for our ministry failures?
