Safe Place to Fail

I find myself using these four words more often these days. But the question remains, do you have a safe place to fail?

Let me explain. I fancy myself in the business of training people. I say to them that I want to provide for them a safe place to fail. Hopefully this takes a little of the pressure to be perfect off of them and my expectations. Is anyone perfect? No. Am I? Not always. Ha! That's a joke. Anyway, I actually stole this saying from Brady Boyd years ago when he was leading a small group for men early on Thursday mornings at Gateway Church. He was talking about hearing God and lifting each other up. He explained that many times we don't speak into other people's lives because we are afraid we will get it wrong, so we just don't say anything. He went on to say that that small group was, say it with me now, a safe place to fail. He urged us to all have a little grace with each other and really try to hear God and use what we felt we heard from God to speak into each others lives and encourage each other.

Now I use that phrase when talking to people about ministry. I recently said it to my intern about my expectations of him. I told him that I expect him to screw up. Not screw up like you just killed a kid, but screw up like you said something the wrong way to a parent or a volunteer. I want to provide an atmosphere for him where he gets his hands dirty and learns how to make decisions and gets some experience. I don't give all the control, just enough to make him sweat for it. When he does mess up a little, it's a safe place for me to come alongside him and talk about it and analyze what went wrong. I don't dismiss it, I discuss it. It's not necessarily confrontation and it's not awkward. It's working through it. Then I set higher expectations because of his newly added experience.

A safe place to fail. I love it. My boss does it for me and it creates a lot more freedom to be me and make decisions. I get to celebrate the successes and learn from the failures. Create some safe places for the people in your life.