I love business. I am an entrepreneur at heart. I love starting something from nothing. I love taking chances. I love trying things no one else has. I love problem solving, dreaming, and making things happen.

But the end result between a church planter/pastor and the average businessmen or woman is our end results.

Most business exists to make money. And that’s great. I love it.

Most churches exist to make disciples. And that’s great. I love it.

But here is the rough, hard, unexpected lesson I have learned this past week.

When a business takes risks or tries something new, sometimes it flops. Sometimes, it doesn’t work. When they try to achieve something and miss the mark, they loose money. And it hurts. It stinks. And they get discouraged.

Businesses lose money when they miss the mark.

But churches wound souls when we do.

We, the church aren’t dealing with hundred dollar bills, we are dealing with hearts.

The pressure of that is daunting. This week has been a week of apologies from me. I have had to have 3 discussions of apologizing for areas where are church has fallen short. We are new. We are trying to figure how to structure our selves as a church. What works, what doesn’t.

And that is a messy process. It only comes from trial and error.

But again, when we error, we hurt. We wound. We turn people away.

When I and our leadership focus on the wrong thing, use wrong words, get tunnel vision, look to much in the future, get competitive, react our of anything but love, people get hurt. Cuts happen.

My hope is that people see the vision that Jesus, not the church, has given us. To make disciples. To love well. To be grace. To serve. That people matter, your story matters, and that Jesus is everything. As a family, we can push and encourage each other towards Jesus. Even when we are wronged, we do what a family does. We fight to make things right within the family.

So that …we can invite others into our family.

But I realize as a pastor now, its not a matter of if I will hurt someone, its when. When my decision is going to rub someone raw. When I feel like I am making the best decision for the church and it’s the unpopular one. When I mess up, (which is frequent), someone could be hurt.

I knew its not if, but when. I didn’t know when would happen so quickly, 7 months in…

So this lesson has been a hard one for me. But a growing one for sure.

So my confession as a new pastor is this: I need to be fervent in prayer, quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. This is Jesus church, not mine. He is The Branch lead pastor, not me. He creates beauty from ashes. I create ashes from beauty. Let him lead, not me.