The F Word

The Epic Fail Pastors Conference

You have to wonder looking at this site what would have happened if the Worldwide Church of God had been courageously humble and had held conferences like this for the ministry instead of the heavy handed "edicts from above" conferences the Church was known for.   What if our ministers had had a chance to get together and share stories of failures, heartache, disillusionment, anger and frustration?  Done in a safe environment where when it was over, no heavy hand would come raining down from above with vile punishments.  Where would we be today if such courageous things had happened?  Would we have 650 some splinter groups roaming the earth today?

You have to admit that there was no support for the ministry in the WCG.  We know this because there was no support for the members! Counseling and therapy was frowned upon as tools of Satan. Admitting failure was a sign of weakness and all men in Armstrongism were to be hyper-masculine and strong.  Can you imagine Rod Meredith, Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, David Hulme, et al., ever doing such a thing?


 

You might be wondering: Should I participate in an event like this?

Yes. Yes, you should.

We are convinced this is significant enough that - regardless of your position, role, track record, past experience (or lack thereof), failures, wounds, gaffes, hurts, hiccups and screw-ups - you belong at a space like this. We have kept the price low ($89) because we know that ‘Super Pastors' don't always have a lot of money or resources or budgets to come to something like this.

We are dreaming of a place that is unique from other events. It's a risk, we know, but it is one we believe is worth taking (So what if it is an epic failure?). We long to have purposeful spaces to listen & share stories, not of our successes, but of our failures. Seeking to understand how God works through the failures. We'll be having our ‘experts on failure' share their stories and God's faithfulness.

In our time together:
We'll share stories.
We'll reflect and process.
We'll have space to just be.
We'll connect with other pastors and leaders who are experiencing the ache that we feel in ministry.
We'll pray. A lot.
We'll laugh (and probably cry).
And we'll take communion together - celebrating the work of Christ and how He is enough for us. Even failures like us.

We're not promising everything will be perfect or that you'll be impressed or blown away. We're not after that. We want to create a space where you can experience something deep within you that can't possibly happen simply by mere external circumstances.

To be honest, we're not exactly sure what will result from our time together - and we're okay with that. The last thing we want to do is over-program such a sacred space. We will facilitate a space where the Spirit can speak to us, affirm us, remind us of His no-strings-attached love - then we will get out of the way.  We anticipate that God may stir something in us - to begin to talk about our identity, our temptations to be important and powerful and charismatic and significant and notices and praised.

We anticipate it will be messy.
We're convinced that while nobody is talking about this stuff, somebody needs to.
Why not us?
Why not here?
Why not now?

 The Idea

The idea for this conference came from two sources: A blog post from J.R. Briggs, a pastor at Renew Community in Lansdale, Pa and the wildly popular site www.epicfail.com.
A few dangerous questions were asked:

• What if we offered a space that is gutsy, hopeful, courageously vulnerable for pastors to let go of the burden to be a Super Pastor?

• What if we could hold an event that was free from the thrills and frills of other pastors conferences?

• What if we came together as epic failures and sought not successful models or how-do's but instead celebrated faithfulness in ministry because of the reality of Jesus?

•What if we were reminded that we're not responsible for being ‘successful' in ministry, but we are responsible for being faithful to the calling that God has laid out for us - regardless of the outcome?

•What if we had a conference that was led not by famous pastors who are household names, but by scandalously ordinary ministers and leaders who are faithfully attempting to join with God - even in the midst of glaring obscurity and anonymity?


That post attracted more hits than any other post that J.R. had written in seven years. People from all over the world began contacting J.R. through the blog, email, phone and text messages saying, ‘I'm in! Where do I sign up?” We knew we had struck a nerve. We were on to something significant.
This excited us and freaked us out.

One can only dream of what could have been.