SQJ Taipei

I’m a missionary with an organization called Team Expansion.

One thing I love about Team Expansion is that they allow me to fail. In fact, in some ways, it *could* be said that they encourage me to fail.

WHAT?

Of course, we don’t strive for failure, but I’m glad to know that the home office understands that it might take a few failures to get this church planting thing right.

After all, we are trying to establish an Indigenous Church Planting Movement here in Taiwan… a wonderful place… with wonderful people… but also a place that remains the only place in the world where people of Chinese heritage have not yet experienced a revival.

I don’t think our work here would be accurately described by the word “failure”, but we’ve certainly failed at times. We’ll keep pressing on.

Here are some stories that might help those in need of encouragement in the face of failure. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to plant churches with a new paradigm or start a business or publish a book or finish a degree or WHATEVER. Here’s the most complete list I’ve seen documenting the “failures” of various famous people.

They Did Not Give Up

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”

Johnny Unitas’s first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Joe Montana’s first pass was also intercepted. And while we’re on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn’t win a single game. You think there’s a lesson here?

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

hattip: Newmark’s Door