If you’re a pastor, especially a church planter, everything new you try should be called an “experiment.”  This lowers stress and allows for failure. 

Whenever you announce some change at your church, it sort of worries people a bit.  The folks that are faithful to you church like it the way it is, for the most part, and change can be scary at times.  When you call changes experiments, it allows people to understand that you’re just trying stuff out.  It also allows you to back up if that changes you’re making aren’t working.

I don’t think this is just a matter of spin either.  I honestly think that you’ve got to look at everything you do as an experiment.  At the end of the day, as church leaders, we’re called to get direction from God and then obey.  We aren’t, however, infallible so we always need to move forward giving it all we’ve got while allowing God to redirect us if necessary.  In other words, we’re participating in a divine experiment.

The cool thing is that even if we miss it God is big enough to help us back on our way.