Failure Is Always An Option

-Rev Melissa Fain-

First of all, before I go any further, Fig Tree exists. Nothing died in it's entirety yesterday.

Now let me get to the reason why yesterday happened: Failure is always an option. I feel as though that's a foreign statement in today's churches. It's as though assuming failure negates God's presence. If anything, admitting failure is the time God is more likely to step in and help. Admitting failure is admitting humanness. It is our nature to fail, and it is in God's nature to extend Grace when we are willing to accept it. 

Failure is also how we learn. This hasn't been Fig Tree's first failure, this is just the first one I've been open about. Most recently, the Lenten Devotional failed this year. Getting the Advent Devotional together this year took too much time, and I couldn't get the ball rolling fast enough on Lent to get the writers going. I see how I failed, and I will make conscious choices in future devotionals. But, devotionals as a whole work here because of previous failures before that. Fig Tree has grown from the compost of failure. Something doesn't work, tear it apart and use it to feed something new.

Why the Livecast was Failing

• It was getting too comfortable: Humanity will do horribly wrong things in the name of comfort. We are creatures of habit, drawn to repetition. As a people, we would rather maintain our unhealthy habits because we understand them, than simply make the right change and move on. This isn't to say Fig Tree's livecast was unhealthy. It is to say, it was moving into rote before it was time. As a Plant, we are much more pliable, and need to take advantage of that fact.
• This isn't the Rev. Melissa Show:  For better or worse, that's what Fig Tree Live was turning into. That was the real problem. The livecast was never supposed to start with just me doing everything. If Fig Tree is the Christian presence sailing online, the livecast needed an anchor with a team of people leading it. The opener should be something to highlight what the congregation is going to learn. Maybe that's a song or a video created by a worship team. Perhaps it's art drawn by someone in the congregation. The point is, it's not me. Then, when it comes time for education, that time is shared with a co-pastor or co-pastors. All ages are important, and right now, the only age being represented are adults, My kids see Fig Tree as a failure, and if they see it as a failure, it is a failure. Co-pastors would give them a church too, while sharing the limelight in a way where it's not solely on me.
  
• It's not over: We need to regroup. I need to talk specifically to certain families and people.  I believe, in a year's time, everyone will see what the livecast was, was a disservice because they will see what it will become. I also believe what has been was part of God's call for this church. What happened was real, and what will happen will change the world.