100 Sermon Illustrations on Risk

While visiting a space exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Great Britain’s Princess Anne was introduced to Neil Armstrong. During her tour she noticed a display of astronauts’ space suits. Turning to Armstrong, she asked, “Is there any danger of a rip?” The one who had taken great risks in being the first to walk on the moon replied, “Yes, the difference between life and death up there is only about one-hundredth of an inch..!”

The same is true down here on earth -- a very fine line separates life from death, time from eternity.

In psychology, there is a concept called learned helplessness, which arose from a series of animal experiments in the nineteen-sixties at the University of Pennsylvania. Dogs were restrained by a harness, so they couldn’t move, and then repeatedly subjected to a series of electrical shocks. Then the same dogs were shocked again, only this time they could easily escape by jumping over a low hurdle. But most of them didn’t; they just huddled in the corner, no longer believing that there was anything they could do to influence their own fate.

Learned helplessness is now thought to play a role in such phenomena as depression and the failure of battered women to leave their husbands, but one could easily apply it more widely. We live in an age, after all, that is strangely fixated on the idea of helplessness: we’re fascinated by hurricanes and terrorist acts and epidemics like SARS – situations in which we fell powerless to affect our own destiny.

In fact, the risks posed to life and limb by forces outside our control are dwarfed by the factors we can control. Our fixation with helplessness distorts our perceptions of risk. “When you feel safe, you can be passive,” one expert noted.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #12025]

Scott Jordan is not averse to risk. He has flown a small plane, tried bungee jumping and skied on glaciers. He once drove his sports car on a public highway at 152 miles an hour, and he is lax about fastening his seat belt on short trips. He only sometimes wears his helmet when cycling.

But terrorism and severe acute respiratory syndrome have him worried. Mr. Jordan, chief executive of a small Chicago apparel company, is likely to cancel his business trip to South Korea next month. “If I go ... and some crazy person decides to bomb the Hyatt, I'm dead,” he says.

Mr. Jordan may not be reading his risk rationally. Even in 2001, when more than 3,000 people died in a terrorist attack on the U.S., he was 12 times as likely to lose his life on a highway as at the hands of a hostile fanatic. But who can blame him?

Today, thanks to research labs, tort law and media hype, danger seems to lurk in every corner of life, from children's toys to McDonald's coffee, anthrax to secondhand smoke, West Nile virus to SARS. Faced with a barrage of warnings -- including the color-coded caveats of the new Homeland Security department -- it's not surprising that in contemporary America, the safest society in recorded history, many people feel as though they have never been more at risk.

“Everyone's nerves are on edge,” says Andrew Karam, radiation-safety officer at the University of Rochester, where he ensures that the use of radiation in medicine and research complies with federal regulations. “No matter where we turn, we're reading about something killing us prematurely.”

Armed with scientific and technological breakthroughs, Americans have dramatically reduced their risk in virtually every area of life, resulting in life spans 60% longer in 2000 than in 1900. Many deadly infectious diseases were tamed, food and water were purified, drugs and surgery helped forestall heart attacks, and thousands of safety devices -- window guards, smoke detectors, circuit breakers, air bags -- protected against everyday mishaps. Even the risk of financial disaster was reduced by insurance, pensions and Social Security.

The very safety of modern life in the U.S. may amplify our sense of loss. To die prematurely today may mean losing 40 years of life instead of 10. And while humans have learned to control much of their environment, there are periodically new, unpredictable and catastrophic threats against which they feel helpless, at least initially, such as AIDS, SARS and anthrax.

The past century also saw the flow of information about risk grow from a trickle to a tidal wave. Government officials, scientists, marketers and the media learned to use risk as a way to get people's attention. “It's much easier to scare than unscare,” says Paul Slovic, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. “We trust people who tell us we're in danger more than people who tell us we're not in danger.”

Many corporations now do formal risk assessments of their vulnerability both to financial disturbances and to physical attacks on their offices or employees. Risks are also presented in a variety of ways -- lifetime risk, annual risk, potential years of life lost, risk per 100,000 people, risk per million people -- which makes it difficult to compare them. And scientists, Mr. Karam says, “aren't very good at talking to people about risk. They won't say something is safe, they'll say it's low-risk.”

Since it began its color alerts in March 2002, the Homeland Security department has never designated the U.S. to be at less than a “significant” risk for terrorist attacks -- level yellow. (The two lower levels, green and blue, haven't been used, and even the safest level -- green -- warns that the risk is “low,” not zero.)

A half-million soldiers have been ordered to get a vaccine for smallpox, a disease that hasn't been seen in nearly 25 years. At airports, security guards direct tens of thousands of people to remove their shoes to reduce the almost-zero risk of shoe bombs. Scientists say it's risky for older women to use hormone-replacement therapy -- but it used to be risky not to. Every month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issues recalls of commonplace items such as travel mugs, baby rattles, sweatshirts, garden chairs and Halloween “vampire capes and witch brooms.”

Marketers and the media have capitalized on people's desire for risk-free living by appealing to their vulnerability. “If you're alive, you're at risk,” proclaim the ads of Destiny Group, a Newport Beach, Calif., company that insures against lawsuits. Women are “at risk for breast cancer just because they're women,” declare the developers of a cancer-risk-assessment model. The Scottsdale, Ariz., company TriVita Way International Inc. sells its calcium supplements by cautioning in ads, “Chances are, you're at risk.”

As more warnings have been dispatched by more Cassandras, however, some people have started to lose their faith in the traditional authorities -- political leaders, scientists and journalists. “As consumers, we have to respond in some way to an unstable and complex stream of scientific claims and counterclaims,” wrote Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics, in his book “The Consequences of Modernity.” “We live on the edge of a technological frontier which no one completely understands and that generates a diversity of possible futures.”

That sense of confusion persuaded Martha Reeves, a 38-year-old nurse at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., not to get the smallpox vaccination she was offered last fall. “I don't want to be part of a group that they find out it doesn't work on,” Ms. Reeves says. Program organizers “didn't have a lot of answers for things,” she adds. “As with anything, you don't know how your body is going to react. And if you have an adverse reaction, then you're out of work.”

The very process of scientific discovery, with conflicting studies recommending different paths, can leave laymen in a muddle. Leslie Rasmussen, a 53-year-old Pasadena, Calif., attorney, had been confidently taking hormone replacements until last summer, when a federal study showed that estrogen and progestin can raise the risk for breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots.

“The fact was, here was something I thought was OK, and suddenly there's a risk to it,” says Ms. Rasmussen. “Either the medical community doesn't have a clear handle on these issues when they release these studies, or the media don't present it clearly. Between the two, you aren't sure what you're being told and why.”

Fear is an evolutionary survival technique -- early humans who worried about other carnivores were more likely to be on guard against them. “We are hard-wired in our brains to fear first, think second,” says David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

And some people even find taking risks addictive, which is why there are people who will climb vertical rock faces, jump off bridges with only a rubber cord between them and the water or try to jump a motorcycle over Idaho's Snake River Canyon.

But most people try to reduce the fear in their lives. Unfortunately, once a person has learned to fear something, he or she may always associate the experience with fear. That means that over a lifetime, fears tend to accumulate rather than supplant one another. Furthermore, humans can fear events they have only read or heard about, which is why people worry about calamities they have never endured.

“In our current environment, our fear system is almost too powerful because it's trying to protect against threats that don't really exist,” says Karim Nader, professor of neuroscience in the psychology department at McGill University in Montreal. “We're not running into predators at every corner.”

Tell that to Matthew Felling, media director of the Statistical Assessment Group, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that studies the way the media use numbers. “I worry all the time,” he says. “When I get on the subway, I know I'm at risk. I've gotten out of a subway car because I didn't like the way someone looked.” Based on historical data, riding the subway is much safer than driving to work. But “fear has become a commodity that's packaged to us,” Mr. Felling says. “You know, 'What you don't know about your envelope-licking can kill you.’ “

Before humans became so good at controlling their environment, they were more resigned to the exigencies of fate -- only prayer could protect them against natural disaster or plague. But as people became more adept at securing food and shelter, they became more interested in the future and how to extend it. When they learned to calculate, they could compute, based on historical data, what events might threaten their lives.

H.G. Wells once wrote, “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.” Even Mr. Wells couldn't have predicted how many statistics people face in their everyday lives now -- and how poorly trained they are to interpret them. “I teach a short course on radiation safety in Las Vegas,” says Mr. Karam at the University of Rochester, “and I wonder how I can talk about probability to people who come there confident they're going to win.”

In early April, Farid Tahbaz, marketing manager for a rubber and vinyl manufacturer in Buena Park, Calif., canceled a business trip to China because of SARS. “At first I wasn't really that scared,” he says. “I didn't think I was going to catch it, and I figured if I did, I'd just get sick for 10 days.” As the trip approached, however, and many people urged him not to go, Mr. Tahbaz began trying to find information on SARS in newspapers and on the Internet. While there are still no dependable statistics on the disease, “I took into account everything I'd read, and decided there was about a 5% chance that I would contract it,” Mr. Tahbaz says. “And then there was a 5% chance that if I got it, I might die from it. When I thought about the numbers, it wasn't worth it.”

Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of risk now is that humans are actually manufacturing it -- with nuclear power plants, the ozone hole, toxic waste, global warming, nuclear weapons, even terrorism. Most of these systems are so huge, complex and relatively new, that the possible consequences of them are wholly unknown. “We don't know how big or small our risk is,” says Baruch Fischhoff, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University specializing in the study of how decisions are made. “It's possible that the world is in transition, and there are poorly understood factors that raise questions about the validity of historical statistics.”

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Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #21120]

Out of World War II comes the story of a platoon of American soldiers stranded on one side of a mine field they had to cross. The commander came up with a plan: one man would walk across the mine field, leaving clear footprints for others to follow. If this first man hit a mine, then another man would walk across the field in his footsteps, until finally someone had cleared a path for all the other soldiers. With their hearts in their throats, the young soldiers agreed to the plan. Which one would be chosen to walk the field first? To their surprise, the commander began walking across the field. As their leader, he insisted on risking his life for the sake of his men. The commander crossed the field safely. Following closely in his footsteps, all the soldiers made it across the field.

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William Beausay II. The Leadership Genius of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), 16-17.

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Even after the passage of 85 years, my childhood Christmas memories are still a symphony of sounds, sights, and sweet smells permeated with anticipation so strong that I can feel it. But there is only one Christmas present - a homemade, wooden sled.

I had asked for it early in the winter of my 10th birthday and heard no more about it. Then, on Christmas morning, it appeared at the foot of the tree. My father had built it with his usual meticulous craftsmanship.

As long as I was tall, it was built of white pine for lightness, braced with mahogany for strength, and held together with counter-sunk brass screws. There was a broad cross piece for my hands, brass-strip runners, and a clear varnish to show the colour and grain of the wood. It was the very Bluenose of sleds and the envy of every kid in the community.

As soon as Christmas breakfast was over, I was out on the steep, dirt road which dropped from the Barnet Highway to the CPR tracks, then across to the chemical plant and Burrard Inlet on the far side I didn’t begin at the highway that first time, nor the second nor the third, for the hill was sheer ice, but each time I would start a little higher and went a little faster, so that by the end of that wonderful day when it was time for Christmas dinner, I was very near the top and the sled had become an extension of youthful recklessness and adrenaline-fired disregard for danger.

With an ever-increasing sense of freedom, I flew down the slope, spun left around the corner with its hazards of rock-pile and cliffs, and right around the curve to the railroad crossing at the bottom. It became a measure of success as to whether I crossed one, two, or three rails, and an oncoming train meant a fast turn into a deep ditch or a frozen swamp full of bull rushes.

Only once did my path cross that of a train - stopped, fortunately, so that I ended up between the front and rear wheels of a box-car. My parents never learned of it.

John A. Charters

Castlegar, BC

U.S. road deaths up where speed limits increased

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The number of road deaths has risen much faster in parts of the United States which have raised the speed limit than in those which have not, according to a statistical study released Friday.

On interstates and freeways, the roads most affected by the trend towards higher speed limits, the number of fatalities rose 12 percent more where the state authorities have raised the limits, it said.

The study, issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia, estimated that in 12 states which raised speed limits 500 extra people died on the roads in the period April-December 1996.

It compared the pattern of fatalities in the last nine months of successive years in 18 states where speed limits did not change and in the 12 states, which raised limits between December 1995 and April 1996.

In the 18 states, road accident fatalities fell to 7,445 in the first nine months of 1996 from 7,564 in the same period of 1995. In the 12 states, it rose to 8,867 from 8,625.

The trend was much more pronounced when the study looked only at deaths on the interstates and freeways. In the 12 states the number of fatalities rose to 1,966 from 1,688. In the 18 "control" states it rose to 959 from 918.

The same trend held for the fast roads for all of 1996 when the study looked at the seven states which raised speed limits before the beginning of 1996.

The U.S. Congress established a national maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour in 1974 but repealed that legislation with effect from Dec. 8, 1995. On some roads in some states, limits have risen to 75 miles an hour.

^REUTER@

Do you remember when you were a child and no dream seemed too big? Some of us thought we would walk on the moon; some dreamed of riding with Roy Rogers; others imagined stepping to the plate in a big-league game. Every one of us, when we were young, had a common trait - we were dreamers. The world hadn't gotten to us yet to show us that we couldn't possibly achieve what our hearts longed for. And we were yet still years from realizing that in some cases we weren't built for achieving our dream (I realized about my junior year of high school that I was too short and too slow to play professional basketball. The dreamer is always the last to know).

Eventually we started to let our dreams die. People began to tell us that we couldn't do the things we wanted. It was impossible. Responsible people don't pursue their dreams. Settle down, get a job, be dependable. Take care of business, live the mundane, be content.

Do you know what I say to that? Hooey!

It is time to dream again!

Why? Here are just a few reasons:

Avoiding regret. The facts are in, and someday we will all lie on our deathbed looking back through the history of our lives. We will undoubtedly think about what we wished we had done or accomplished. I for one don't want to regret what could have been, what should have been. So I am deciding today to pursue my dreams.

* Making the world a better place. All of the great accomplishments that have ever happened began with a person who had a dream. Somebody rebuffed the nay-sayers and said to himself or herself, "This can be done, and I am the one who will do it." And in many instances they changed the world for the better. It isn't just the Martin Luther King's and the J.F.K's either. Think of all the people we have never heard of who have started things large and small that help people world-wide every day.

* The world needs people like you to dream of something great and then to pursue it with all of your heart. Maybe you belong to a business, school, or organization that started out with good intentions but has settled into the same ol' same ol'. Shake them up and remind them of how they could really help people if only they would dream!

* Personal and family fulfillment. One of the things that happens when we stop pursuing our dreams is that a little piece of us dies and we become disheartened, if only in that area of our lives. Stepping up and pursuing your dream rekindles that passion and zeal that everyone has the capacity for and lets us experience fulfillment. Having a purpose puts the zip in our step and the zing in our emotions!

* Leaving a legacy. How will your children remember you? As one who sought all that life had to offer, using your gifts and talents to their fullest extent, leading the family with a zest for life, or as an overweight couch potato who could have been? Our children need to see that we dream; that we search for something better. They in turn will do the same!

So where do we start? Here are some ideas:

* Reconnect with your dream. Set aside some time to let yourself dream. What have you placed on the backburner in order to live the status quo? Settle on one or two dreams that you can and will pursue. Don't come up with too many. That will only deter you further.

* Decide that you will do it. This may seem elementary but many people never decide and commit fully to their dream. They simply keep "thinking" about it. Tell others that you are going to do it. This puts you on the record as to what you are dreaming about. It makes you accountable. It will help you do it if for no other reason than to avoid embarrassment!

* Develop a step-by-step plan. This is absolutely essential. You must sit down and write out a few things:

- A timeline. How long will it take to the end?

- Action steps. Point-by-point what you will do and when you will do them.

- Resources you will need to draw from. What will it take? Who will need to be involved for help or advice?

- An evaluation tool. You need to evaluate from time to time whether you are progressing or not.

- A celebration. Yep, when you are done you should already have planned what you will do to celebrate. Make it big!

I have found that there is no better time than now. So, set aside some time today to get started on your dream. Follow the action plan and set your sights for the top of the mountain! You will be glad you did!

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Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer

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Why are you scared of nuclear power, but not of a peanut butter sandwich? Simply put you're off your nut, some gurus of “risk assessment” might say.

Anyone with half a brain would be scared silly of a peanut butter sandwich. But you're not. And if I continue to pummel you with statistics that say you're more likely to die from the natural carcinogens in peanut butter than from living next to a nuclear power plant, you'll eventually knock me down and stuff jelly up my nose.

When the captains of the nuclear industry originally offered the peanut butter equation, it didn't make them very popular with environmentalists and others who think we rely too heavily on half-tamed technologies and chemicals. The environmentalists, in fact, wanted to knock the captains of the nuclear industry down and stuff jelly up their noses.

But the peanut butter equation illustrates a point: When scientists bang on their calculators, they come up with a list of things that kill lots of people, but don't scare us much. Likewise they can produce a list of things that don't kill many people, but of which we live in dread. Consider these disparities, for instance:

• Scientists rate nuclear power as fairly safe; lay people are horrified

by it.

• Scientists think X-rays are moderately dangerous; lay people aren't so

worried.

• Scientists rate swimming as rather hazardous; lay people consider it

rather harmless.

What can explain this chasm between what we're scared of and what we should be scared of? Well, if “risk assessment” takes the objective view of a hazard, then its sister science, “risk perception,” examines the subjective side. And it has revealed a method in our madness.

Risk perception seems to attract scientists with a frisky approach to research. One experiment, for example, involved dipping a dead, sterilized cockroach into a glass of juice, then noting the percentage of people who wouldn't drink. In another trial researchers observed that people refused to put on a sweater worn by someone who committed a moral offense, or by someone with an amputated foot!

Using these and more orthodox approaches, risk-perception researchers have identified some general rules that cause us to greet danger with a yelp or a yawn. As stated by Carnegie Mellon researcher Baruch Fischhoff, “We probably do have our priorities screwed up, but there's usually some reasonable reason for it.”

• Natural risks are less scary. Perhaps this explains why we loathe nuclear power but ignore the radioactive threat of natural radon gas.

• Risks imposed on us seem worse. We can decide if we want to risk swimming, but when a hazardous waste incinerator sprouts next door we feel powerless and panicky.

• Risks with an obvious benefit are less daunting. One reason we give appreciative ratings to X-rays and surgery is that we focus on the payoff.

• Risks associated with complex technologies and catastrophes are greater. This is partly because the media dwell on catastrophes. If each day's headline read, “One in 50 of You Will Die in a Car Crash” (and this is an amazing, true fact), we'd think twice about risking our necks in those death traps every time we need a donut.

In light of how we estimate risk, our fears don't seem quite so silly. They reflect our notions of fairness and our desire for control over our lives. They reflect emotional truths, and for $95 any psychologist will tell you nothing on the planet is less silly than an emotion.

And that explains the big smile on my face every time I tempt fate by eating a peanut butter sandwich in the car on the way to the pool.

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Hannah Holmes, copyright © 1997 Discovery Communications, Inc.

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When a group of soldiers found themselves locked away in a German prison camp during World War II, they easily could have waited out the end of the war there. Or, they might have made a few small attempts to free one or two people.

At one such camp, however, the goals were much bigger. These prisoners organized themselves around the collective goal of freeing 250 soldiers in one night. Their story became the basis for the 1963 movie, “The Great Escape.”

Imagine the teamwork required to pull off such an ambitious goal. Groups of prisoners had to engineer and dig tunnels, build supports from wooden slats, dispose of dirt, create bellows to pump air into the tunnels, and light the tunnels.

According to one list, the supplies included 4,000 bed slats, 1,370 battens, 1,699 blankets, 52 long tables, 1,219 knives, 30 shovels, 600 feet of rope and 1,000 feet of electric wire.

In addition to finding materials for the tunnels, each escapee would need civilian clothes, German papers, identity cards, maps, homemade compasses and emergency rations.

Everyone had a job, from tailors to pickpockets to forgers. There were even teams that specialized in distracting the German soldiers.

“It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than 600 men - every single one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and every night for more than one year,” John Sturges, who directed the movie account, once said. “Never has the human capacity been stretched to such incredible lengths or shown such determination and such courage.”

To pull off such an elaborate mission, the soldiers moved beyond cooperation and into collaboration. You see, there's a difference between cooperation and collaboration.

Cooperation is working together agreeably. Everybody sits down, and they're agreeable. Collaboration is working together aggressively; and there's a world of difference between those two.

There are four changes needed to become a collaborative type of a player:

Perception. You need to see teammates differently; you need to see them as collaborators, not as competitors.

Attitude. As a team player, you need to be supportive, not suspicious, of teammates, because if you trust others, you'll treat them differently - you'll treat them better.

Focus. A collaborative type of team player concentrates on the team, not himself or herself. Cavett Roberts said it right: “True progress in any field is a relay race and not a single event,” so the focus is different.

Results. You begin to create victories through multiplication.

One is too small of a number to produce greatness. In fact, nothing can be accomplished in a great way without help. You have to learn to collaborate. You have to learn to come together.

When you're developing a team that collaborates, it begins to be aggressive, not just agreeable. And it begins to accomplish a vision that mere cooperation never would allow.

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When that terrorist bomb ripped apart the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City on that infamous April 19, Mark was on the scene within ten minutes. Today that scene of horrendous carnage and violence is a tranquil Memorial Site in downtown Oklahoma City. One night when I was speaking in that city, Mark -- who is a police officer -- took me there for a personal tour that was deeply moving. Gesturing toward the quiet memorial area that stands where the building once stood, he showed me where the nursery had been, from which he had carried the youngest victims of the bombing. And he pointed to the area where he had assisted in the dramatic rescue of a woman who thought she was going to die but who was brought out alive by some valiant rescuers. Mark remembers making a quick call to his wife that day, telling her and his daughters that he loved them, and not expecting to ever see them again. As he and the men around him looked at the sagging wreckage over their heads, Mark said to his supervisor, “I think we're going to die here.” They must have all thought that. But they refused to leave because lives were at stake.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “The Heart Of a Hero.”

Standing next to a man who had risked his life on this very ground to save other lives, it struck me full force -- a rescuer forgets about himself. Or he'll never take the risks to go in to save a life -- someone who will die if he doesn't. And I thought about what it is that keeps most people who have been rescued by Jesus from trying to rescue other spiritually dying people. We're so focused on ourselves that either we don't care about those lives at stake or we're paralyzed by our fears of how they might react if we told them about Jesus -- who is heaven's Rescuer. In either case, we do nothing because we're all wrapped up in ourselves. The exact opposite of a rescuer, who abandons his self-interest because someone will die if he doesn't.

In a sense, all of us who know Christ are actually “Esthers.” She's the Jewish girl who became the queen of Persia without anyone ever discovering her real roots. Then came the day when a shrewd conspiracy caused the king to approve a decree for the slaughter of all Jews. Mordecai, the man who had raised Esther, sent her a message, urging her to go to the king and plead for the life of her people. She was fearful because the law of the land dictated that anyone who entered the king's presence unbidden would be executed -- unless he extended his golden scepter to them. In Esther 4:14-16, Mordecai appeals to her with this plea: “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Esther does go to the king, uttering this courageous declaration: “If I perish, I perish.” The heart of a rescuer. It doesn't matter what happens to me -- it matters what happens to the people who will die if I don't do something. And her people were saved.

Like Esther, you have been assigned where you are -- where you work, where you live, or where you go to school -- to help save the lives of the people there. People who, without a relationship with the Man who died for their sins, face an eternity in hell and no hope of heaven. And you have the life-saving information about Jesus that can rescue them. It's not about changing their religion or winning an argument. It's about whether they have a chance to know the only Person who can save them -- Jesus. You're afraid of what might happen if you went in for the rescue. It might damage your relationship, and you might mess it up. Would you think like a rescuer -- fearing more what will happen if you don't attempt the rescue than what will happen if you do?

Jesus abandoned Himself completely to rescue you. There is no rescue unless the rescuer forgets about himself or herself. Someone's eternity may depend on you doing just that. God put you where you are so they could have a chance at heaven. Don't fail them. Don't fail the Rescuer who died so you could live.

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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It's not uncommon for me to remind the leaders at Saddleback Church that they have my permission to make at least one mistake a week. I tell this to staff members and to lay leaders, explaining periodically that it's OK to make mistakes -- provided they're not making the same mistakes over and over again each week.

Now, obviously, I don't want the leaders at Saddleback to fall into sloppy habits, but I do want them to feel free to fail because that means they'll also feel free to take risks! My point is that, if you're not making mistakes, then you're probably not trying anything new. And, if you're not trying anything new, then you're not learning, and if you're not learning, then you and your ministry will quickly be out-of-date, perhaps even irrelevant.

The secret to being innovative is not being afraid to fail. So, let me encourage you to take risks in your ministry. Don't be afraid to try different methods or to think way out of the box. The great inventor, Thomas Edison, saw mistakes in a positive light, saying they taught you the things that won't work, freeing you to discover what will succeed. Edison moved on from mistakes and failures, inventing, among many things, the light bulb.

Few great things have ever been accomplished without risk-taking, and we need to teach our leaders, and our members, to take risks in their ministry for Christ. One reason this is so critical to your ministry is that it ties into faith- building. In other words, “risk-taking” is an expression of faith, and a godly “risk-taker” is being faithful in his service to God.

Will we believe God for big things? If the answer is “yes,” then we automatically become godly “risk-takers” -- men and women who trust God and live by faith and not by sight. When we teach our people to take risks, we are teaching them to develop faith in God.

One way to teach this concept is to take people to Mark 10:27b (NIV): “...all things are possible with God.” Ask your leaders to circle the word “all,” and to write the letters “NSD” next to that verse. “NSD” stands for “No Small Dreams.” We serve a big God, and He says the size of our faith will determine the size of our blessings in life: “According to your faith will it be done to you....” (Matthew 9:29, NIV)

A great biblical example of faithful risk-taking is in Matthew 25, where Jesus tells the story of three servants who are given a varying amount of talents by their master just before he goes on a long journey. Jesus says one servant was given 10 talents, which he went out and doubled; another servant was given five talents, which he also doubled. When the master returned, he told these servants, “Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.” (Matthew 25:23, The Message) In many biblical translations, the master describes these servants as faithful.

But, in the story, the servant who was given one talent proves to be unfaithful, telling his returning master, “... I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.” (Matthew 25:24b-25, The Message)

Jesus says the master was furious, and he told the servant: “... That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.” (Matthew 25:26-27, The Message)

The master then said the single talent should be given to the one who risked the most: “And get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb....” (Matthew 25:29, The Message) The point is that when you're not taking risks with God, you're being unfaithful.

If we're not taking any risks in our ministries, then we're really not exercising any faith, and if we're not exercising any faith, then we're being faithless. This week, think about the risks you are taking or the risks you should be taking in your ministry.

*

The late Spencer Penrose, whose brother was a major political leader in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century, was considered the “black sheep” of the family. He chose to live in the West instead of the East. In 1891, fresh out of Harvard, he made his way to Colorado Springs. Not long after his move, he wired his brother for $1,500 so that he might go into a mining venture. His brother telegraphed him $150 instead - enough for train fare home - and warned him against the deal.

Years later, Spencer returned to Philadelphia and handed his brother $75,000 in gold coins - payment, he said, for his “investment” in his mining operation. His brother was stunned. He had qualms about accepting the money, however, and reminded his brother that he had advised against the venture and had only given him $150. “That,” replied Spencer, “is why I’m only giving you $75,000. If you had sent me the full $1,500 I requested, I would be giving you three-quarters of a million dollars.”

________

“God’s Little Lessons on Life for Mom,” Honor Books of Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1999, page 193.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #17789]

Whether we are being obedient or disobedient, living courageously or cowardly, in all of life there is always risk. John Piper refers to “the enchantment of security” as a potent myth that pollutes our lives. Risk is a reality for all of us because we don’t know how things will turn out; it is built into the framework of our finite lives. Our plans for the future always carry the risk of being shattered by a thousand unknowns. Our declarations of love always carry with it the risk of dismissal. And our vows to follow after God carry with them the risk of obedience. As Christ reports, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

In the book of Joshua, which recounts the battles Israel fought after crossing the Jordan, “possession” and “promise” are key words. The people of Israel were commanded by God to go and take possession of the land He had promised them, to seize what had been given.

It is the distinction between the promise itself and the POSSESSING of that promise that recently startled me. The land was not just given to them; they were called to fight and seize hold of what was promised. To take possession of the Promised Land required risk, and yet God imparts that it was indeed given to them. He declares through Joshua, “I gave [your enemies] into your hands.... You did not do it with your own sword and bow” (24:11b, 12b).

In pursuit of God’s promise, the Israelites fought courageously; many grew weary and some may have given their lives. The risk was certainly real. But each obstacle that blocked the Israelites’ ability to possess what God promised was a powerful lesson that He was among them. Though the risk was certain, over each trial they faced, God had indelibly inscribed the promise of victory and the assurance of his presence.

Our relationship with God does not hold risks the same way that our relationships with others pose risks. The risk is not with God; it is with you and me. When the covenant was made with Israel that they would be his people and He would be their God, it was not God’s ability to keep the covenant that worried anyone. Standing on the Promised Land in the excitement of victory and the confidence of possession, the Israelites declared that they would faithfully serve and follow God. Joshua responded flatly, “You are not able to serve the LORD” (24:19). Our promises to God certainly carry the risk that they will be broken.

He accepts us regardless. As the Israelites encountered combat and conflict, risking their lives in obedience to the LORD, they were repeatedly reminded that the greatest of all possessions is the promise of God Himself. God not only keeps his vow but acts on our behalf knowing that we cannot. As He declared to Joshua so He declared in the blood of his Son, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

We can wholeheartedly seize his promises knowing that we don’t know the outcome of our days, but that his Word is more certain than our lives. In risk and suffering, uncertainty and disappointment we are assured and instructed by the same words given to Joshua. As he weighed the risk involved in seizing God’s promise, Joshua was told: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” He asks for boldness and then carries us through the risk.

________

Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton posted this announcement in 1913 for an upcoming expedition to the bottom continent:

Men wanted for hazardous journey.

Small wages.

Bitter cold.

Long months of complete darkness.

Constant danger.

Safe return doubtful.

Honor and recognition in case of success.

More than 5,000 men applied for 26 positions.

Shackleton was good to his word, because the expedition was a disaster -- their ship was crushed by ice floes, most of the crew had to be abandoned on a frozen and deserted island, and a handful of men had to take a small boat on a one-chance mission to the outside world. Miraculously, they succeeded. The entire crew was rescued without the loss of a single man. The crew was honored throughout the British Empire, though they had never even got a chance to start out toward their intended goal.

The Rev. Hamilton Coe Throckmorton shivered with anticipation as he gazed at the loot - wads of $50 bills piled high beside boxes of crayons in a Sunday school classroom.

Cautiously, he locked the door. Then he started counting.

It was a balmy Friday evening in September in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. From several floors below faint melodies drifted up - the choir practicing for Sunday service.

Throckmorton was oblivious. For hours, perched awkwardly on child-sized wooden stools surrounded by biblical murals and children’s drawings, the pastor and a handful of coconspirators concentrated on the count.

Forty-thousand dollars. Throckmorton smiled in satisfaction as he stashed the money in a safe.

That Sunday, the 52-year-old minister donned his creamy white robes, swept to the pulpit and delivered one of the most extraordinary sermons of his life.

First he read from the Gospel of Matthew.

“And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his ability.”

Then he explained the parable of the talents, which tells of the rich master who entrusts three servants with a sum of money - “talents” - and instructs them to go forth and do good. The master lavishes praise on the two servants who double their money. But he casts into the wilderness the one so afraid to take a risk that he buries his share.

Throckmorton spends up to 20 hours working on his weekly homily, and his clear diction, contemplative message and ringing voice command the church. Gazing down from the pulpit that Sunday, Throckmorton dropped his bombshell.

Like the master, he would entrust each adult with a sum of money - in this case, $50. Church members had seven weeks to find ways to double their money, the proceeds to go toward church missions.

“Live the parable of the talents!” Throckmorton exhorted, as assistants handed out hundreds of red envelops stuffed with crisp $50 bills and stunned church members did quick mental calculations, wondering where all the money had come from. There are about 1,700 in the congregation, though not everyone attends each week.

The cash, Throckmorton explained, was loaned by several anonymous donors.

In her regular pew at the back of the church, where she has listened to sermons for 40 years, 73-year-old Barbara Gates gasped. What kind of kooky nonsense is this, she thought.

“Sheer madness,” sniffed retired accountant Wayne Albers, 85, to his wife, Marnie, who hushed him as he whispered loudly. “Why can’t the church just collect money the old-fashioned way?”

In a center pew, Ann Nagy’s eyes moistened as she considered her ailing, beloved father, his suffering, and the song she had written to comfort him near death. She nudged her husband Scott. “Give me your $50,” she whispered. Nagy knew exactly what she would do.

Throckmorton wrapped up his two morning services by saying that children would get $10. And he assured the congregation that anyone who didn’t feel comfortable could simply return the money. No consignment to outer darkness for those who didn’t participate.

Throckmorton is warm and engaging and approachable, as comfortable talking about the Cleveland Indians baseball team as he is discussing scripture. At the Federated Church, he is known simply as Hamilton.

But as church members spilled into the late summer sunshine that morning to ponder their skills and their souls, there were many who thought: Hamilton is really pushing us this time.

“There was definitely this tension, this pressure to live up to something,” said Hal Maskiell, a 62-year-old retired Navy pilot who spent days trying to figure out how to meet the challenge.

Maskiell’s passion is flying a four-seater Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the Cuyahoga County hills. He decided to use his $50 to rent air time from Portage County airport and charge $30 for half-hour rides. Church members eagerly signed up. Maskiell was thrilled to get hours of flying time, and he raised $700.

His girlfriend, Kathy Marous, 55, was far less confident. What talents do I have, she thought dejectedly. She was tempted to give the money back.

And then Marous found an old family recipe for tomato soup, one she hadn’t made in 19 years. She remembered how much she had enjoyed the chopping and the cooking and the canning and the smells. With Hal’s encouragement Marous dug out her pots. She bought three pecks of tomatoes. Suddenly she was chopping and cooking and canning again. At $5 a jar, she made $180.

“I just never imagined people would pay money for the things I made,” Marous exclaimed.

Others felt the same way. Barbara Gates raised $450 crafting pendants from beads and sea glass - pieces she had casually made for her grandchildren over the years. Kathie Biggin created fanciful little red-nosed Rudolph pins and sold them for $2.50. Twelve-year-old Amanda Horner pooled her money with friends, stocked up at JoAnn’s fabric store, and made dozens of colorful fleece baby blankets, which were purchased by church members and then donated to a local hospital.

And 87-year-old Bob Burrows rediscovered old carpentry skills and began selling wooden bird-feeders.

But it wasn’t the money; everyone said so. It was something else, something far less tangible but yet so very real. For seven weeks an almost magical sense of excitement and energy and camaraderie infused the elegant red-brick church on Bell Street, spilling over into homes and hearts as the parable of the talents came alive.

In her sun-filled studio on Strawberry Lane, Shirley Culbertson felt it - a joyful sense of purpose that she had rarely experienced since her husband passed two years ago. Culbertson, 81, is a gifted painter and watercolors fill her house. But she discovered another talent during this time - knitting whimsical eight-inch stuffed dolls with button noses and floppy hats. She raised $90.

Zooming down country roads clinging to the back of a leather-clad biker, Florence Cross felt it too. For the challenge, Barry Biggin had parked his 2006 Harley Davidson Road King outside the church, offering 12-mile rides for $30. Cross was the first to sign up. Never mind that she is in her mid-80s, had never been on a bike, or that her husband of 60 years had to hoist her up.

“Oh, it was such a thrill!” said Cross, her face glowing at the memory. Her friends now call her “Harley Girl.”

Martine Scheuermann lived the parable in her Elm Street kitchen, transforming it into an “applesauce factory” for several weeks. The 49-year-old human resources director would rise at 6 a.m. on Sundays in order to have warm batches ready for sampling at church services.

In his origami-filled bedroom on Bradley Street, Paul Cantlay lived the parable too. Surrounded by sheets of colored construction paper, the 9-year-old crafted paper dragons and stars and sailboats. He set up an origami stand at the end of his street, charged 50 cents to $5 depending on the piece, and raised $68.

Talents began multiplying at such a rate that the church held a bazaar after services on two consecutive Sundays for people to display - and sell - their wares.

The pretty little village on the Chagrin River falls had never seen anything quite like it. Everyone seemed to be talking about the talent challenge: over the clatter of coffee cups at Dink’s restaurant, at the Fireside bookshop on the green, sipping drinks at the Gamekeeper’s Taverne. Even members of other churches weighed in: Have you heard what’s happening at Federated?

“Anyone can open their wallet and give cash,” Kris Tesar said. “This was just an extraordinary process of exploration and discovery and of challenging ourselves. It became bigger than any one of us or than any individual talent.”

Tesar, a 58-year-old retired nurse, discovered her talent in buckets of flip-flops for sale at Old Navy. She stocked up on yarn and beads and made dozens of funky, fluffy decorative footwear that were a huge hit with teens. Tesar raised $550 for the church, is still taking orders and is thinking of starting a business. Now even her children call her the “flip-flop lady.”

People also got to know the “hen lady” - Gabrielle Quintin, who took to raising chickens on a whim 23 years ago when she moved into a 180-year-old house with a barn. Her “ladies,” as Quintin calls her backyard flock, provide a welcome distraction from her nursing job in a cancer center. Quintin decided to put her brood to work for the church. For $10 church members could “hire-a-hen” and get three dozen fresh eggs complete with a photograph of the “lady” who laid them.

“It wasn’t exactly spiritual, but I had a lot of fun,” said Quintin, whose husband, Mike, made glass birdfeeders. “And it was just this great way of bringing everyone together and connecting with the church.”

Kathy Wellman quilted. Mary Hobbs knit shawls and penciled portraits. Cathy Hatfield auctioned a ride in her hot-air balloon. Norma and Trent Bobbitt pooled their money with another church member to hire a harpist from the Cleveland orchestra and host an elegant evening dinner party. Folks paid $50 each to attend and the Bobbitts made over $1,200.

And physician Peter Yang took over shifts from other doctors in his partnership (he used his $50 for gas to get to the hospital) and raised $3,000.

The deadline to return the money was Sunday, Oct. 28. Nervously, some church council members suggested posting plain clothes security guards at services that day. But Throckmorton would have none of it. He insisted that the spirit of the challenge, which had already inspired so much goodwill, would carry them safely through. And it did.

Organ music filled the church as people silently filed down the aisle, dropped their proceeds into baskets, and offered testimonials about what living the parable had meant to them. Throckmorton thanked everyone for their generosity. Then he started counting.

A week later he delivered the joyful news: They had more than doubled the amount distributed.

The initial take was $38,195 over the loan, but the amount is still growing. Some people didn’t make the deadline, or extended it in order to finish their projects.

The final sum will be divided equally between three charities: One-third will go to a school library in South Africa where the church is involved in an AIDS mission; one-third will go to micro-loan organizations that provide seed money for small businesses in developing countries; one-third will help the Interfaith Hospitality Network in Cleveland, specifically programs for homeless women.

Throckmorton is asked all the time if the talent challenge will become an annual event, but he is doubtful. It was a special time and a special idea, he says, and he is not sure it could be re-created or relived.

Yet in a very real sense, it lives on. Church members who never knew each other have become friends. And orders for applesauce, flip-flops and Rudolph pins are still rolling in for Christmas.

There are other, more poignant reminders. Like Ann Nagy’s haunting tribute to her father, who died of brain cancer on Oct. 11.

Nagy, 44, has always been a singer with a clear lovely voice. It wasn’t until her father grew ill and moved into a hospice that she started writing songs. She found solace in the music and a way of communicating that was sometimes easier than spoken words.

At hospice, patients are taught five simple truths to tell their loved ones before they die: I’ll miss you. I love you. I forgive you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.

Borrowing from that theme, Nagy wrote a farewell song for her Dad. She pooled her $50 talent money with her husband’s share and cut a CD to sell to church members. Ironically it was finished just an hour before her father passed, on Oct. 11. Nagy stood by his bed and sang it for him anyway.

On Nov. 11 - her father’s 72nd birthday - Throckmorton preached a sermon about dying. He invited Nagy to the altar. There, accompanied by a cellist and a pianist she sang “Before You Go.”

Her voice soared. The congregation wept. The parable of the talents had never seemed so alive.

________

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Dr. Alan J. Meenan, tells an important story that emerged from the Los Angeles riots some years ago. These were the same riots that made Rodney King a household name. A Hispanic man by the name of Fidel Lopez was trapped by this race-based rioting. He was beaten within an inch of his life, battered by bottles and bats, punched in the face with angry fists, and kicked mercilessly, until an African American minister, Bernie Newton, threw himself on top of him. Bernie Newton cried to the crowd, “If you kill this man, you’re going to kill me first.”

When he finally out-shouted the rioters, he got Fidel into his car, and took him to the Daniel Freeman Hospital. Some time later, he raised $3,000 from a collection in his own congregation to give to Fidel. That was the amount of money the rioters had stolen from him.

Later Mr. Lopez asked Reverend Newton, “How can I begin to thank you? You saved my life. Why did you do what you did? Why did you risk your own life?”

Bernie Newton answered, “Because I am a Christian. Because I believe in sowing love not hate. Because I believe in healing and not hurting. Because I believe in Jesus the Prince of Peace and the Prince of Love.”

________

Hollywood Pulpit, http://www.fpch.org/hollywoodpulpit.org/sermon031005.html.

How do you spell success? Much of the world spells it M-O-N-E-Y, or F-A-M-E or P-O-W-E-R. And that includes many Christians. Somehow, we have absorbed the idea from the world that if we don’t have money, fame or power, we are not successful.

If you are participating in the world’s rat race to accumulate money, fame or power as the gateway to success, may I encourage you to switch from the Forbes’ lists to another list of successful people? In doing so, you will learn how God spells success: F-A-I-T-H-F-U-L-N-E-S-S.

Hebrews 11 contains a list of people who were earthly, as well as eternal, successes in God’s sight. And not one of them is recognized for wealth, fame or power.

Abel offered a righteous sacrifice. Enoch pleased God. Noah obeyed God. Abraham trusted God. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph kept alive the promise of God. Moses overcame his fears to obey God. Joshua conquered by trusting God’s Word. Rahab put herself in danger to serve God. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets conquered, administered justice and turned weakness to power for the sake of God. Many others were persecuted and lost their lives in the process of being faithful to God, these “of whom the world was not worthy” (verse 38).

How did they obtain such a good testimony? It was not through success based on money, fame or power. It was success by being faithful: “having obtained a good testimony through faith” (verse 39). If I had to choose between being on the cover of Time magazine and being listed in Hebrews 11, guess which I would choose? Which would you?

RISK AND REWARD

Have you or your family played any of the varieties of the classic board game called RISK®? Since 1959, RISK has been enticing players to succeed at dominating the world through military strategy. The risk-reward ratio is not in your favor, but the most calculating and strategic of players can rule the world (or Europe, or Middle Earth, or the oceans, or the moon -- depending on which version you play).

May I suggest a risk-reward strategy that is 100 percent guaranteed to make you successful in the eyes of God? Living your life according to the precepts of God is a no-risk route to success in this life and the next. And four key passages of Scripture explain why. I encourage you to read and meditate on each as you contemplate how God defines success.

• Joshua 1:6-9. Meditating on God’s Word day and night, being careful to do everything written in it, will bring prosperity and success. Strength and courage will characterize you as you walk through this world.

• Psalm 1. Delighting in “the law of the Lord,” meditating on it day and night, will cause you to be fruitful and prosperous. You will avoid the counsel of the ungodly, the path of the sinful and the seat of the scornful.

• Matthew 5:3-12. These “be-attitudes,” as they have been called, characterize the man or woman who is blessed and happy in this life. Humility, mourning, being meek, hungering for righteousness, showing mercy, purity, making peace, suffering for Jesus -- these are what bring blessing (success) in God’s sight.

• Philippians 3:7-14. Leaving behind the world’s fame and power, Paul found success in pressing forward toward making Jesus Christ his all in all -- and was exalted as a result.

I encourage you to consider these no-risk strategies for success in God’s sight. And should God bless you with wealth, fame or power, use them for His glory. As an example, former top runway model Kathy Ireland has traded in her Sports Illustrated swimsuits for her own line of modest clothing as head of her own multi-million dollar company. She teaches Sunday school, has written a book about her spiritual growth, plans a Bible study section for the company website and asks her employees to honor the Lord with their speech. [see also HolwickID #36011]

Whether your wealth and fame spread around the block or around the world, stay successful in God’s sight by making Him the focus of it all.

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic won 43 straight matches over a period of six months before losing to Roger Federer in the French Open in June.

This amazing series of wins, against the best players in the world, rocked the sport of tennis. But it was the loss, and a string of bitter defeats last year during a self-described personal “crisis,” that set the stage for Djokovic’s greatest triumph to date: his first Wimbledon championship. He beat defending champion Rafael Nadal July 3 in convincing style on the sport’s biggest stage.

“[L]osing that really epic semifinal against Federer -- a great match -- I managed to recover and to come back ... and to win Wimbledon for the first time in my life,” Djokovic told reporters.

Winning is great, but losing helps you get better -- if you learn from your mistakes. Any good athlete or coach will tell you the same. Compete with bigger, faster, better players, they advise. Pay the price of losing repeatedly in order to gain the skills to win.

Wise parents and teachers instill the same approach to life in children. “Helicopter parents” who anxiously hover, terrified their kids will stub their toes or not get into the school play, are only ensuring greater failure down the road. If you don’t fail once in a while, you don’t grow. And you fear taking on something really challenging.

Churches, ministry organizations and mission teams often make the same mistake. They stick to the script, the proven program, the best practice. But some brave soul has to discover for the first time what works, usually by repeated failures.

Pastor/author Rick Warren reminds leaders at his church “that they have my permission to make at least one mistake a week,” he wrote in a 2004 Baptist Press column. “I don’t want [them] to fall into sloppy habits, but I do want them to feel free to fail because that means they’ll also feel free to take risks! My point is that if you’re not making mistakes, then you’re probably not trying anything new. And if you’re not trying anything new, then you’re not learning, and if you’re not learning, then you and your ministry will quickly be out of date, perhaps even irrelevant. The secret to being innovative is not being afraid to fail.”

It’s also the secret of faith, Warren added. The unprofitable servant in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-29) was also the unfaithful one. He took no risks with the money his master gave him. Peter, on the other hand, recklessly stepped out of the boat to walk toward Jesus on the stormy sea (Matthew 14:22-31). He began to fail, to sink. His faith was small. But it was greater than that of the other terrified disciples huddling in the boat.

Nearly every business and management book published in the last 25 years probably has a chapter titled “Freedom to fail” or something similar. It sounded great -- until the U.S. economy failed spectacularly in 2008 because of foolish risks taken in Washington and on Wall Street. Now investors fear spending their money on new ventures. Businesses hesitate to hire new workers. The economy will never truly recover, however, until people in a position to change things risk failure and show some faith in the future.

“At this point, freedom to fail probably ranks right around freedom to remove your own appendix,” observed business writer Megan McArdle in a recent article for TIME magazine (“In Defense of Failure”).

“That’s a pity, because failure is one of the most economically important tools we have,” McArdle wrote. “The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate failure; it should be to build a system resilient enough to withstand it. ... The real secret of our success is that we learn from the past, and then we forget it. Unfortunately, we’re dangerously close to forgetting the most important lessons of our own history: how to fail gracefully and how to get back on our feet with equal grace.”

Too many organizations, however, insist on punishing failure.

“I once taught a workshop in a large organization and included an activity where I asked the delegates to think of the ‘second right answer’ to a problem,” says Mark McGuinness, who coaches organizational creativity. “They looked like rabbits caught in the headlights. When I asked them what was wrong, they told me they were always expected to come up with the right answer and were severely punished for making mistakes. No prizes for guessing how creative they were. And yet -- when they relaxed a little -- they showed me they were perfectly capable of thinking creatively. It was the fear of punishment that stopped them from using this ability at work.

“People and companies that succeed through innovation take a very different approach to failure. They accept it, or even encourage it, because they know that failure holds the key to success. ... Encourage people to try new things and learn from their inevitable mistakes. Reward them for being open and honest about mistakes and failures -- so that these are not swept under the carpet, causing even more problems. If you’re going to punish anything, punish failure to learn. If you don’t, the market will.”

Are you listening, ministry leaders? Disciple makers model how to follow the Lord, just as Christ did with the Twelve. He sent them out two by two, let them learn the hard way (see Peter and the boat) and patiently taught them day by day. I’ve lost count of the number of Christian leaders I’ve seen sabotage their own ministries by refusing to allow their followers to grow through failure.

If you want hundreds of examples of victory coming through failure, defeat, loss and despair, read the Bible.

WHAT SHOULD YOU REALLY BE AFRAID OF?

Using the most recent U.S. data available, (here is) a list of unsettling threats and their far riskier counterparts.

Murders (2008) - 14, 180

Suicides (2006) - 33, 289

Children abducted by strangers (1999) - 115

Children who drown in pools (2006) - 288

Burglaries (2007 - 2.2 million

Identity thefts (2005) - 8.3 million

Shark attacks (2009) - 28

Dog bites (annual average) - 4.5 million

Americans killed by terrorist attacks around the world (2008) - 33

Americans who die from the seasonal flu (annual average) - 36,171

Deaths by allergic reaction to peanuts (annual average) - 50-100

Deaths by unintentional poisoning (2006) - 27,531

Women who die from breast cancer (2009) - 40,170

Women who die from cardiovascular disease (2006) - 432,709

Fatal airline accidents (2005) - 321

Fatal car crashes (2008) - 34,017

Americans audited by the IRS (2009) - 1.4 million

U.S. Deaths (2007) - 2.4 million

________

Some of the figures are annual averages and estimates.

For most people, the appeal of the $640 million jackpot [March 2012 but undoubtedly there will be billion dollar one someday] far outweighs the insanely slim chance they’ll actually win. Just how small are those odds? The likelihood you’ll win the Mega Millions jackpot tonight is a paltry, pathetic 1-in-175,711,536, which represents the total combinations of numbers available.

Wait a minute. At a cost of $1 per ticket, you could — theoretically — buy every combination, guaranteeing that you’ll win and still make a profit. But as more and more tickets continue to spew from machines across 42 states, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the odds of your victory diminish greatly. If there are at least 350 million tickets sold, there’s a 90% chance that at least two people will win – which means you’ll come out with a loss. Plus, you’ll have wasted many hours (and slaughtered an entire forest) printing the mountain of tickets.

With that miniscule 1-in-176 million probability, let’s face it, the odds are heavily stacked against you. Here are ten absurd occurrences that are more likely to happen than you hitting all six Mega Millions digits:

Writing a New York Times bestseller:

1-in-220

Dating a super model:

1-in-88,000

Drowning in the bathtub:

1-in-840,000

Dying by falling off a ladder:

1-in-2.3 million

Killed using a right-handed product if you’re a lefty:

1-in-7 million

Killed by falling airplane parts:

1-in-10 million

Birthing identical quadruplets:

1-in-13 million

Becoming a saint:

1-in-20 million

Making two holes-in-one in one round of golf:

1-in-67 million

Killed by a vending machine:

1-in-112 million

For good measure, you are indeed more likely to win the massive Mega Millions pot (at 1-in-176 million odds) than you are to be:

Killed by a falling coconut:

1-in-250 million

Killed in a shark attack:

1-in-251 million

Killed by falling space junk:

1-in-21 trillion

Sure, most of these odds are only estimates by scientists and journalists, calculated by using the number of occurrences of such an event divided by the number of people on the Earth. While some of these odds fluctuate often (what random occurrence doesn’t?), it’s clear there are few fathomable things less likely to happen than winning this major jackpot.

It was a YouTube sensation in 2012. In the middle of a mall food court, a young man in a suit gets on his knees before his girlfriend. This food court is packed and everyone turns to stare at them. A friend videotaped him as the young man said, “We met here one year ago, right in front of this Cinnabon. And when we did, I was dizzy in your presence. Caroline, I love everything about you. I love the way you, you get a cupcake. And when you have the cupcake you cut it in half and the frosting, and you make a little tiny, a little cupcake thing. I love the way you curl up next to me on the couch and purr like a little kitten....”

He then stands up, holding her hands, while a guy with a guitar comes alongside playing “Sweet Caroline.” Everyone in the food court starts singing along.

The young guy then gets back on his knee and opens a ring box. People are taking out their cellphones and taping him. He says, “Make me the happiest man in the world, and please will you marry me?”

His girlfriend stands there with her hands over her face, says, “Oh my God!” and runs away while everyone stares. The guy stands there stupidly, then he escapes, too. Someone in the background says, “That is brutal.” Another person says, “The Cinnabon lady said she’d marry him.”

Rejection is hard. When you propose marriage to someone, you take a risk. And when you share your faith in Jesus, you take a risk. When they reject the gospel, they are rejecting you as well. But if we really believe salvation is something worth having, we need to go out on a limb and share it with others.

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Adapted from "Food Court Proposal Gone Bad" by LeftRightSevenProd, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnyKkA05nYw

U.S. road deaths up where speed limits increased

WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The number of road deaths has risen much faster in parts of the United States which have raised the speed limit than in those which have not, according to a statistical study released Friday.

On interstates and freeways, the roads most affected by the trend towards higher speed limits, the number of fatalities rose 12 percent more where the state authorities have raised the limits, it said.

The study, issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia, estimated that in 12 states which raised speed limits 500 extra people died on the roads in the period April-December 1996.

It compared the pattern of fatalities in the last nine months of successive years in 18 states where speed limits did not change and in the 12 states, which raised limits between December 1995 and April 1996.

In the 18 states, road accident fatalities fell to 7,445 in the first nine months of 1996 from 7,564 in the same period of 1995. In the 12 states, it rose to 8,867 from 8,625.

The trend was much more pronounced when the study looked only at deaths on the interstates and freeways. In the 12 states the number of fatalities rose to 1,966 from 1,688. In the 18 "control" states it rose to 959 from 918.

The same trend held for the fast roads for all of 1996 when the study looked at the seven states which raised speed limits before the beginning of 1996.

The U.S. Congress established a national maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour in 1974 but repealed that legislation with effect from Dec. 8, 1995. On some roads in some states, limits have risen to 75 miles an hour.

^REUTER@

Those who take the risks necessary for intimate friendship gain a treasure that will transform their lives.

1. Places in the Heart.

Friends have a special hold on us.

David & Jonathan

Paul & the Ephesian elders

2. The Divine Pattern.

The perfect model for intimacy is found in the heart of God.

According to John 14:20, there is a mutual residence in our hearts.

3. Beyond the Living Room.

Deep mutual knowledge is the practical content of the term intimacy.

4. The Details and the Depths.

Friends must know one another deeply.

5. Dirty Laundry.

By allowing God into our darkest corners we can be a better friend.

6. Building Intimacy.

a. Common Faith

b. Common Interests

c. Time together

d. Vulnerability

e. Sensitivity

f. Loyalty

g. Prayer

7. Power to Transform.

In the loving acceptance by friends we can find the courage to forgive

ourselves and change.

Even after the passage of 85 years, my childhood Christmas memories are still a symphony of sounds, sights, and sweet smells permeated with anticipation so strong that I can feel it. But there is only one Christmas present - a homemade, wooden sled.

I had asked for it early in the winter of my 10th birthday and heard no more about it. Then, on Christmas morning, it appeared at the foot of the tree. My father had built it with his usual meticulous craftsmanship.

As long as I was tall, it was built of white pine for lightness, braced with mahogany for strength, and held together with counter-sunk brass screws. There was a broad cross piece for my hands, brass-strip runners, and a clear varnish to show the colour and grain of the wood. It was the very Bluenose of sleds and the envy of every kid in the community.

As soon as Christmas breakfast was over, I was out on the steep, dirt road which dropped from the Barnet Highway to the CPR tracks, then across to the chemical plant and Burrard Inlet on the far side I didn’t begin at the highway that first time, nor the second nor the third, for the hill was sheer ice, but each time I would start a little higher and went a little faster, so that by the end of that wonderful day when it was time for Christmas dinner, I was very near the top and the sled had become an extension of youthful recklessness and adrenaline-fired disregard for danger.

With an ever-increasing sense of freedom, I flew down the slope, spun left around the corner with its hazards of rock-pile and cliffs, and right around the curve to the railroad crossing at the bottom. It became a measure of success as to whether I crossed one, two, or three rails, and an oncoming train meant a fast turn into a deep ditch or a frozen swamp full of bull rushes.

Only once did my path cross that of a train - stopped, fortunately, so that I ended up between the front and rear wheels of a box-car. My parents never learned of it.

John A. Charters

Castlegar, BC

On February 26, 1995, Barings, the oldest bank in Britain, announced it was seeking bankruptcy protection after losing nearly one billion dollars in a stock gamble. At the time Barings went under, the bank held assets for Queen Elizabeth, some $100 million according to Time magazine.

In late 1994, the chief trader at Barings's Singapore office began betting big on Japan's Nikkei market. Then disaster struck. An earthquake hit Kobe, Japan, and on January 23, 1995, the Nikkei plunged more than one thousand points.

Barings Bank lost big money. But instead of cutting his losses, Barings's Singapore trader doubled his investment, apparently hoping that the Nikkei would rebound. It didn't. As the Nikkei continued to plummet, Barings's London office put up nearly $900 million to support its falling position on the Singapore investments. Finally Barings ran out of capital and declared bankruptcy.

How could one twenty-eight-year-old trader in Singapore lose nearly a billion dollars and ruin a 233-year-old British bank? According to Time, the problem was lack of supervision.

London allowed [the Singapore trader] to take control of both the trading desk and the backroom settlement operation in Singapore. It is a mix that can be - and in this case was toxic.... For a trader to keep his own books is like a schoolboy getting to grade his own tests; the temptation to cheat can be overwhelming, particularly if the stakes are high enough.

Without accountability, temptation becomes all the more tempting. Accountability protects us from ourselves.

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Contemporary Illustrations For Preachers, Teachers, & Writers, Editor Craig Brian Larson, Baker Books, p. 10.

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