Sunday is a special Sunday: it’s Father’s Day. I know this isn’t an easy day for everyone. If, like me, you’ve lost a father it can be tough. If you never really had a father, had a difficult father, or you desperately want to be a father but it hasn’t happened – I know all of these things can make Sunday difficult. Yet I also know for many of us Sunday can be a celebration. So recognizing all the complexity on Sunday I want to explore an odd topic: my failures.

On Sunday I want to be open and honest and share with you how I have failed as a father, and what that has taught me about God and relationships in general. I’ve only been a father for 3 short years, and 6 months with 2, but even in three years you can falter and fail even with the best intentions.

I know it’s an odd place to start with failures, but if you’re at all like me I learn so much more from my failures than sometimes my successes. And as I’ve faltered as a father my boys have been teaching me so much about God, myself, and all my relationships. So this is what I really want to take a look at on Sunday because failing doesn’t bother me. Not learning from my failures bothers me. I will make mistakes, and mess up – that’s life and parenting. But my hope is always to grow and change. So on Sunday we’ll open up some of my failures so that together we might all learn some important biblical principles around attention, affirmation, and owning our reactions.

Of course I’ll be sharing stories, of my boys painting the carpets and stories from Jesus. So I hope you can join us. But before we get there why not spend sometime and think through what failures have you really learned from? How have you changed? And most importantly, are there people you can share these lessons with so that we might all grow together?