Why Your Church Staff Needs a Failure Resume

This episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, hosted by Todd Rhoades, discusses the importance of embracing failure to foster innovation and growth within church staff cultures. By normalizing failure, teams can learn effectively and create a psychologically safe environment that encourages taking risks and learning from mistakes. Drawing inspiration from leaders like Tina Fey and organizations like Google, the episode advocates for sharing past failures to model learning and authenticity, thus building a stronger, more innovative team. • Church staff may develop a culture of silence where failure feels career-threatening. • Mistakes are often buried instead of used as learning opportunities. • Failure should be seen as part of the learning process, promoting innovation. • Major companies promote discussing failures to enhance learning and reduce mistakes. • Biblical examples show that God uses imperfect people for great purposes. • Healthy teams are those that 'fail forward' and embrace risk for growth. • Encourage sharing past failures within the team to foster a culture of learning.

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Transcript

When Ministry Efforts Flop

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Your youth pastor just launched a massive outreach event last week. Weeks of planning, tons of budget allocated, marketing pushed really hard, and then 12 kids showed up, and he's never mentioned it. Or maybe your worship leader tried a new song format that completely flopped, and she pretends that it just it never happened. Meanwhile, everybody, it it seems like everybody's just walking on eggshells, afraid to try anything new that might not work. If this sounds like something that happens quite often in your church, I'm glad you're here. And we're going to talk about that today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.

The Culture Of Silence

SPEAKER_00 0:48

My name's Todd Rhodes, and I am your host. I'm also one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com. Here's what most church staff cultures accidentally create over time. Maybe I shouldn't say most. Some, or maybe even a lot, of church coach church cultures end up with this kind of culture of silence. Over time, we've created environments where failure feels almost career-threatening. Staff members bury their mistakes instead of learning from them. Everybody's pretending that they have it all figured out, even though they don't. New initiatives become safer and smaller. And innovation, maybe that you were known for five or ten years ago, starts to die because that risk of making a mistake just feels too dangerous.

Why Smart Leaders Study Failure

SPEAKER_00 1:42

But what if Google and Tina Fey and some of the smartest leaders in business are onto something we're missing? It was quite the segue, wasn't it? Todd, tell me a little bit more about this. Major companies are now asking candidates to share their biggest failures. Not because they want to eliminate them, but to understand how they learn. Tina Fey says her failures taught her more than her successes. Google promotes intelligent failure as part of their culture at Google. And they know that teams can talk about mistakes. Teams that talk about their mistakes and can talk about their mistakes actually make fewer mistakes. Now, I know that your heart is to create a culture that's excellent

Excellence Needs Psychological Safety

SPEAKER_00 2:28

and filled with integrity. And that's exactly why this matters. Because failure on a resume or failure in trying new things that just don't work out, really, if you think about it, it actually normalizes the learning process instead of perfection. It shows your staff that growth requires risk. It creates that psychological safety for innovation. And it turns mistakes into teaching moments for the whole team. Are you gonna lose some money sometimes? Absolutely. Is you gonna throw something up against a wall that doesn't work? All the time. But most importantly, it models that God uses imperfect people.

Biblical Leaders Had Failure Resumes

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Think about the biblical precedent here. Moses had a failure resume. Think about it. Killing an Egyptian, running away, are those things that you would want to put on your resume. But if Moses was honest, he probably would have there. Think about what David's resume would look like if you got it across your desk. David's failures are documented for all time. Peter denied Jesus and still became the rock. Paul called himself the chief of all sinners. God is always and has always been in the business of using flawed leaders. So why do we pretend that our staff should be any different?

Bottom Line Fail Forward Together

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Here's your bottom line for today. The healthiest church teams aren't the ones that never fail. They're the ones that fail forward together. They're the ones that take risks, that use that initiative, that try to innovate whenever they can, even though they know that innovation is gonna most certainly cause some failures.

Share A Failure With Your Team

SPEAKER_00 4:16

This week, I want you to try something radical, something different, something maybe you've never ever done before. Share one of your own ministry failures with your team. You've got one. One is in your head right now. Share that with somebody on your team, not to excuse poor performance, but to model learning. Tell them what you learned and how it made you better. Watch how it changes the room because it will. Your staff doesn't need you to be perfect, they need you to be real. And when we create space for honest failure, we create a space for authentic growth and innovation in ministry will skyrocket. I hope that's been helpful for you today. My name's Todd Rhodes. You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.

Get Help Building Healthy Staff Culture

SPEAKER_00 5:04

As I said, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com. If there's any way that I or someone on my team can help you and your church cultivate a healthy staff culture, maybe that's hiring someone, maybe that's unfortunately firing someone, maybe that's making sure you have your benefits all in line, compensation, any of that. Let us know. We'd love to be able to come alongside you and see if there's a way that we can help you. You can reach out to me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that is it for today, and we will be right back here tomorrow.

Tomorrow Refugee Camp Staff Warning

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Tomorrow we're going to talk about when your church staff becomes a refugee camp. You won't want to miss that right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.