How do you deal with failure as a youth worker?

In my last post I wrote an open letter to the church asking all of us, myself included, to spend more time caring for the lost and isolated than we do grumbling about each other and the ‘state of affairs’ online. I led that with it’s not ok to not be ok.

Today I want to double underline that it is, in fact, ok to not be ok. Ish. Kinda.

I don’t shake failure easily. I carry it around like a heavy bag over my shoulder full of bricks, and little evil gremlins with hammers and pitchforks. It’s heavy, and it hurts, and if left unchecked it only gets heavier. Here’s two examples of pretty colossal failures in my ministry.

In my first full-time youth min job I ran a ‘large’ youth event. I brought in the biggest speaker I’ve ever commissioned for any event, I decked out a hall, sorted a band and a PA, and I purchased so many doughnuts! I expected a large crowd of young people to show up. All the signs were that they were going to. They didn’t. I ended up with a small handful at best. There were more people on the stage than under it. To this day I don’t understand what happened.

I remember then having to explain to the church leadership team where it went wrong, and why I’d spend so much money. I remember exactly how that felt.

The other story involves a young girl in a meeting. I was fresh out of Bible College, and a question was asked of the main group leader (not me), about heaven and hell. I interjected a smarmy, know-it-all, and frankly irrelevant response about predestination that totally freaked that girl out. She was shaken and clearly afraid, and she said across the room that she would never, ever come to me for help. She always had before, but she never did again.

These memories, and others like them, are part of who I am. A little bit like ptsd, I tend to relive rather than just remember these failures too. They dig deep and they put down roots – but there’s more to it than that.

Failure isn’t actually the problem

The thing that gnaws about memories like these isn’t actually failure. Failure can cut, but that’s not where the pain is. Failure might be the sword, but it’s not the sword itself that hurts. The wound is what hurts. The wound is what bleeds. The wound is where the pain’s located.

It’s not the thing that happened, it’s the thing that the thing that happened caused. So, what is that?

That wound is shame.

It’s not the failure that burns, it’s the shame of that failure. The more we fail, and the more that shame goes unchallenged and untreated, the deeper it burrows, and the more it festers. A festering wound grows toxic; it stops the wound from scaring, and it keeps us unhealthy.

As a youth worker I’ve gotten a lot wrong in my time. We all do, right? I’ve failed a lot. And that’s ok. It is. It’s ok to get things wrong. It’s expected. The best of us do! The greatest people we admire are covered in exactly these types of battle scars. There’s a difference, though, between wound and scars.

When wounds don’t scar

The problem though – and here’s when it’s not ok to be not ok – is when those wounds remain wounds.

Wounds are supposed to become scars. The tissue will never be exactly the same again, but that’s the thing about a scar. It leaves you changed; you are different than you were before. A wound, though, is not a scar. A scar is messy, perhaps unsightly, but it’s no longer a risk. A wound is still dangerous.

Wounds need to scar, or they will not heal.

Shame has to be treated, or it will not disappear.

I think shame is one of the most insidious ways the devil attacks us as youth workers. He whispers things like, ‘You got that wrong,’ ‘you failed,’ ‘you let everybody down,’ ‘you let vulnerable people down,’ ‘ you let parents down,’ ‘you let your employer down,’ ‘you let God down.’ When we fail, he attacks the wound relentlessly. He throws all his weight at it and does everything in his power to keep it from scarring.

Shame is a wound that needs to be treated, and it needs to be treated with the healing, Jesus-driven power of gospel truth. So we need to recalibrate – from the Bible – how we see failure and shame, and in doing so, thoroughly disarm Satan of this method of attack.

So, let’s do some healing theology.

A theology of condemnation

Satan is sometimes called the accuser, which is fitting, but therein lies his defeat.

For someone to accuse you of something, they have to appeal to a law, or a rule that you’ve broken. They have to have an agreed standard to go off, something to condemn you against.

So, if someone says ‘you’re late’ they have to appeal to an agreement you made about what time constituted ‘being on time’. If you get a speeding ticket, there needs to be a speed limit sign and a law to back that up.

An accusation doesn’t work without an agreed standard. They go hand-in-hand.

The standard that Satan appeals to; the one that he uses (or more accurately the one he manipulates) is God’s revealed standard. Usually that comes down to the moral or legal code that God gave in the Old Testament. That’s the thing that could condemn us.

Hopefully now your shouting at the screen – but we’re not condemned by the law anymore, Tim, haven’t you heard about grace?!

And you are absolutely right! Which means Satan, in reality, has nothing on us.

Colossians 2:13-14 says this:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

That very standard then, which would have condemned us – that Satan is trying to trick us into thinking still condemns us – has been nailed to the cross. That means every possible broken piece of God’s law has been paid for by Jesus dying for us. The standard itself has been paid for – not just the consequences of falling short of it. There is nothing left to accuse you against.

This doesn’t mean that the Old Testament law is bad, or useless, or even obsolete, but it does mean that there is no possible wrong that you could ever do that hasn’t been fully and completely paid for on the cross.

Say it with me. Through Jesus you are actually, in reality, not guilty (1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Cor. 5:21). This is literally what the doctrine of justification means.

So, where is your shame?

If you trust in Jesus, there is no eternal or legal cause for your shame. This means that Satan has nothing; nothing on you. There is, eternally, no charge that can stick against you. Whatever he says is literally impotent. It’s useless.

Colossians 2 goes futher than this. It says in v.15,

‘And having disarmed the powers and authorities’ (one of Paul’s phrases for Satan and co., check out Eph.6:12)… ‘he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.’

Satan is disarmed and then hauled out as the fool he is.

Don’t give the devil his power back

When we hold on to shame from failure, we re-empower the standard that Jesus died for. We give Satan his weapon back – it’s like we’re trying to rob the cross of its power.

However, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Yes, I have failed. You probably have too. Yup. And it sucks.

Learn to mourn it. Grieve. Confess it, don’t just cower from it, or cover it up. Learn from it. Apologise, grow, and move on.

Yes, it will shape you and it will change you. It probably should. But don’t salt the wound and stop it from healing. Don’t believe the accusations. God is far more powerful than your failure. In fact, He often shows up and does miracles right in the very middle of that failure.

In Lk. 24:19-21, the disciples believed that the death of Jesus was a failure, and shame had begun to fester. It was then that Jesus told them that through that very act of ‘failure’ was actually the victory they were waiting for (vv.25-27).

In Gen. 50:20, Joseph is reflecting on all the harm is brothers had caused him, and he told them that the very act which caused harm, God meant it for good. The very same place of pain was God’s place of salvation.

When you dwell on the shame of failure, you not only empower Satan, but you might even miss what God is doing in you.

You are not guilty. A failure, sometimes, and maybe, but still not condemned.

If you’re still carrying the shame of failure, maybe now is the time to fess up, revisit the gospel, and spend some time on your knees with the prince of grace.

It’s worth it. Trust me.

Best.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash