At one time or another most of us have felt that we haven’t achieved what we set out to do. Maybe it was due to lack of time, insufficient resources, lack of follow-through etc; or maybe it was a poor plan to begin with. Whatever the reason, it’s not a pleasant feeling and often something we don’t want to share with others.

On the other hand – perhaps sharing our failures with our church family is what Christians need to do. It may enable us to better understand why we failed so that we (and those around us) can learn from the failure and then, as the Apostle Paul observes in his letter to the Philippians, to put it behind us and move on (Phil. 3:13).  Also, Paul seems to have benefitted from simply sharing his troubles with the Philippians (Phil. 4:14).

For the reasons above, we (the Rowleys) are sharing our failure with you. Specifically, we feel a sense of failure in our leadership of the Congregational Care Ministry. Why?....because nothing much is up and running and the few ‘activities’ we did plan (Communication Packets for Visitors, Adopt a Student and DG New Member Roster) either didn’t get off the ground or didn’t take hold as we expected. And yet lots of spontaneous caring activities are happening – meals are being supplied by loving individuals to those in need; new members are being invited to people’s homes for food and fellowship; babysitting is being provided for our young families; transport to and from church is regularly provided to many in the congregation; unsettled babes are being looked after by surrogate mums (and dads) in Bible Class and Worship; people are praying for each other and sending notes of encouragement and probably lots more we’re unaware of.

What are the learnings here? Well some may be:

• Ministry success is not just about programs implemented. Maybe in leading a ministry such as Congregational Care, it’s just as much (or more) about identifying and communicating needs and then encouraging people to just ‘pitch in’.
• Lots of unselfish, caring acts happen regardless of centrally organised interventions because we are a loving family.
• Some organised programs/interventions are probably required but these should be needs driven, few in number, focussed and impactful.
• Ministry Leaders often don’t know what these needs are and require your views and your willingness to get involved

Proverbs 15:22 points out that ‘with many advisers they (plans) succeed.’ So, please talk to us, give us your views about the real needs for this ministry and tell us how YOU can help. And of course continue with your wonderful, caring acts whenever the opportunity arises.