I returned home from vacation last weekend to discover that I couldn’t get into my neighborhood.  The main road was closed because a sinkhole had opened up and swallowed part of the road.  (I thought sinkholes belonged in Florida, but hey…)

It turns out the ground opened up because a 5-foot diameter drainage pipe collapsed under the road.  Apparently it had been going bad for years, but finally failed spectacularly under all the rain.  Several friends have wondered aloud why it wasn’t repaired earlier.  Great question.  We like to arm-chair quarterback in the aftermath of failure.  And truthfully, that’s not a bad idea.  We can often learn quite a bit by doing an “after action report” of the failures we witness or experience.

That’s precisely what we’ve been doing in our summer series, “Failing Forward.”  If you’ve missed out, you can catch all the previous talks here.

• Trouble in Paradise
• By Any Means Necessary
• Meltdown Mountain
• The Posse of the Impossible
• Squandered Strength
• Praying in the Dark
• The Homecoming

And if you’ve ever had a sinkhole of failure open up in your own life, or had a “hole in your ‘hood,” you’ll appreciate what we’re gaining from the fascinating (and sometimes tragic) stories found in the pages of the Bible.  So plan to join us in the coming weeks.  Because while we may not get to choose when failure happens, we DO get to choose how we can grow forward after the fact.  As a famous preacher once said, “Failure is often the back door to success.”

-Pastor Mark