If you could not guess, I’m also a space nerd.  I have loved rockets since childhood.  My uncle, William, got me into building Estes Rockets while I was growing up, and then came NASA’s Shuttle program.  I remember building a shuttle model and launching it as I listened to the countdown of the first shuttle launch.  I watched both shuttle disasters live and can remember the pain and disappointment of the loss of the astronauts and, eventually, the program. 

For almost two decades, our nation was embarrassed to have to hitch rides to the International Space Station. Then, private industry entered the space industry. Most notably, SpaceX has changed the industry by lowering costs and making its rockets partially reusable, and it is working on full reusability, just as my Estes rockets were reusable. 

This past Sunday, I watched the replay of the fifth launch of a starship from Texas. It was incredible to see such a huge ship take off and then catch the booster with the same tower from which it launched. 

Behind the rapid growth in capabilities that have driven Space X to the forefront of rocketry worldwide is the company's embrace of failure as a learning experience. They did not try to get everything perfect for the first launch; in fact, they planned for failure. They collected data on what worked and what did not and then worked to improve for the second launch.  They are still doing this through the sixth launch, which is upcoming.  Every time they launch, and fail, they learn and improve the next ship.

The church could learn from this, and we have.  We can have a mindset that whatever we do has to be perfect or excellent, but sometimes, we have to do the best we can and then evaluate what worked, what did not, or what can be improved.  I heard this from the men during the evaluation of our Fall Fling. 



It is also a part of our faith walk.  When we come to Jesus and accept Him, we often stumble as we try to follow Him.  We will fall into temptation and sin.  But as we get back up and turn to Him again, accepting our mistakes and learning from them, allowing the Holy Spirit to empower and guide us, we will be able to follow Christ more closely and more toward Christian Perfection. 

So don’t let the fear of making a mistake hold you back from sharing Christ with someone. You may do it imperfectly, but God uses the imperfect, as we see in our “Unlikely Heroes of the Bible” Sermon Series.  If you make a mistake, learn from it and try again, for God is with you.

Peace,

Pastor Burt