I heard something tonight at my daughter’s fifth grade graduation.  One of the speakers quoted a basketball coach who supposedly said, “Do what you need to do and do it right the first time.  Because you may never get the chance to do it over.”  

I appreciate the spirit.  We should all try to do things as well as we can.  But if I have to get it right the first time, I may never try to do anything worth doing.  Confession time: I learn best by missing the mark.  I learn the most from my failures.  I tend to get a little better with each attempt.  But if I had to get it right, I’d just melt under the pressure.

A few years ago, I heard Stan Ott say that in church work, the best approach is not, “Ready, Aim, Fire. HIt the mark”  but “Ready, Fire, Aim. Repeat.”  

I like that.  And those places where I’ve missed or messed up – those are the places where God’s grace is so abundant.  There’s fellowship there.  Freedom, too.  I fall down.  I get helped up.  We try again.  With missional communities, we learn all the time.  We have good guidance from 3dm and Verge network.  We have mentors and friends who help us.  But mostly, we learn by getting it wrong for a while and trying again.

G.K. Chesterton never coached basketball, but he once said, “If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.”  Amen.