As the western church faces challenges in declining membership and effectiveness due to religious disaffiliation and general discontent with organized religion, innovation must be a central focus within all aspects of ministry in the Christian church. With the focus that the local church must put on innovation, one aspect that will continually be an important factor is how the church understands, interprets, and utilizes failure. Yes, the church must fail! However, the church must not simply fail for the sake of failure. The challenge for the local church is to rethink its notion of failure, which will allow for creativity, new life, and ultimately, transformational innovation. By establishing a proper framework and definition of failure, the church will be able to embrace good failure and the benefits it can offer.
