If you’re a sports fan, you might be familiar with the difference between failure and defeat.

Your team can work hard all year, practice well, come together to execute their plays—and still lose in the championship. Or your team can be the kind where it’s clear right from the outset that they are not going to make the playoffs, who struggle to muster the energy to get suited up and out of the locker room, and whose players are more focused on their next contract and not their next game. The first team has been defeated. There was simply a better team out there. The second team has failed. It hasn’t even really tried. There may be agony but there’s no shame in playing confidently and losing. What is problematic is being unable to even enter the arena, or playing the game so poorly you might as well never have suited up.

If you are in ministry today it can be very easy to feel like a failure. Lots of us are working hard to put together interesting programs, preach compelling sermons, and lead engaging worship. Yet sometimes these efforts just don’t gain traction. People don’t show up. They stare off into the middle distance distractedly, or glance at their phones too often. In my experience, we........

© Anglican Journal