DAMAGE CONTROL FOR MISTAKES
How do you keep a minor blunder from mushrooming into a major error?
James D. Berkley
July 1, 1987
Mistakes are inevitable, even for pastors. Even for excellent pastors. Wisdom and will can go awry, and ministry suffers. The mistakes can be as benign as arriving late for a meeting, or as harmful as living a lie. Some "mistakes" come as brash surprises: A pastor told LEADERSHIP, "One day I changed the church thermostat-and the church fired me! They told me I was 'too involved.' " Mistakes happen. But dig into any effective pastor's past, and you uncover mistakes transformed into character. To discover how this is accomplished, LEADERSHIP associate editor Jim Berkley sought the insight of veteran pastors who, combining grit and grace, have grown through their mistakes. He pooled their wisdom into Making the Most of Mistakes, an upcoming volume in THE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY. The following excerpt focuses on minimizing the damage of personal blunders. Thick containment shields cover the best designed nuclear reactors. Should something go wrong, these shields provide the first line of defense by containing explosions, and thus contamination. If radioactive debris and gases remain within the shield, the extent of the damage stays limited, and mop-up operations are possible. When clergy error causes a runaway reaction in the parish, containment is again the word. Little mistakes have a way of becoming big, sometimes insurmountable, problems-if they are not contained. Pastors have found, usually the hard way, that when the disaster alert sounds, some actions contain the damage better than others. A Parish Chain Reaction
On a prominent suburban corner stands a beautiful church complex, newly built and lushly landscaped. The senior pastor (let's call him Josh) is a gifted preacher, a warm pastor, and a successful leader. Sitting in his finely ...
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