Good Catastrophe Leads to Innovation: The Church’s Risk of Resurrection

“Don’t mess up! Don’t put your parents to shame.” These are the words my parents often said to me while I was growing up. For many Asian Americans, shame is more than a private feeling. Researchers have found that shame can mean a person experiences failure not only as a personal disappointment but also as something that reflects the whole family.¹  Shame can become social and spiritual. These findings should not be overgeneralized to every family or subgroup, but they do reveal a pattern many people experience.

Shame is not unique to the Asian American story. Across many families and cultures, children grow up learning that mistakes can bring embarrassment, disappointment, or consequences that feel larger than the mistake itself. We learn to manage perception, avoid risk, and hide weakness. We learn to believe that catastrophe is what follows every mess-up. Russell Shaw’s article, “Let Your Kids Fail,” speaks directly to that dynamic by arguing that when adults overprotect children from setbacks, they may also keep them from building resilience and confidence through struggle.²

Shaw’s article raises a deeper theological question about what happens if a life with no room for failure becomes a life with no room for redemption? If all we know is how to avoid catastrophe, we may never learn how God redeems catastrophe. If all we know is fear of loss, we may never recognize Resurrection when it comes. If children are never given space to fail, and if adults are never taught to take risks, then there will be no imagination for a sudden good turn.

Catastrophe can take at least two forms. Sometimes it is the result of our own doing: a mistake, a failure, a bad decision, moral compromise, a missed opportunity, or a pattern of unfaithfulness. Other times, catastrophe happens to us: illness, grief, betrayal, economic hardship, cultural disruption, conflict, decline, or circumstances we did not choose. In either case, catastrophe involves rupture, loss, collapse, or the sense that something has broken and may not be repairable. Catastrophes are not only about dramatic disasters, but also about the kinds of failures, wounds, and endings that shape a person’s life, a family’s story, or a church’s future.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that we are not to remain in our experiences of catastrophe. We are instead invited into “eucatastrophe,” which is a sudden redemptive turn that can emerge within, after, or through a catastrophe.

What is Eucatastrophe?

J.R.R. Tolkien coined the word “eucatastrophe” in On Fairy-Stories. He called it the “good catastrophe,” the “sudden joyous turn.”³  Tolkien is careful to explain that the turn does not erase sorrow or pretend that catastrophe is not real. Rather, eucatastrophe interrupts what seems like defeat is the end of the story. He writes, “The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation.”⁴  Eucatastrophe is not cheap positivity, naïve optimism, or spiritualized denial. It is the conviction that in the midst of real darkness, a redemptive turn is still possible. For Christians, eucatastrophe is not simply a literary device. It is more than a theological lens. It is the gospel reality of a world in which God can bring life out of death, hope out of despair, and redemption out of ruin.

The greatest eucatastrophe is not found in fictional literature, but in a person: Jesus Christ. The cross looked like a catastrophe. Jesus was betrayed, abandoned, condemned, tortured, and executed. He was buried into the finality of a tomb. On Friday, hope seemed shattered and lost. The silence of Saturday seemed to confirm the reality of death and defeat.

Yet, Sunday Came.

The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest eucatastrophe of history. It is the decisive, joyful, and world-changing sudden turn in which death does not win, sin does not get the last word, and despair is disrupted by new creation.

We find the patterns of eucatastrophe throughout scripture. Joseph tells his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). At the Red Sea, Israel is trapped until God makes a way where there is no way (Exodus 14). Dry bones live again by the breath of God (Ezekiel 37). God promises restoration after devastation (Joel 2:25). Mary sings of a God who overturns human expectations by bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly (Luke 1). Paul proclaims that “death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15). These biblical texts illustrate Tolkien’s pattern of eucatastrophe: catastrophe is real, AND God brings a surprising redemptive turn.

God is in the business of eucatastrophe. Repeatedly throughout scripture, God meets catastrophe with redemption. Not every story resolves quickly, and not every wound heals neatly, but the biblical witness teaches us to expect that God can bring a new beginning out of what looked finished. This witness is most profoundly clear in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we are invited into his Resurrection reality.

If We Never Learn to Fail, We Never Learn Resurrection

Childhood formation matters. If, from an early age, we are taught not to make mistakes, then we may become highly skilled at avoidance but poorly formed for hope. We may know how to protect ourselves from embarrassment, but we may not know how to recover from loss. We may know how to hide weakness but not know how to trust grace. We may know how to prevent catastrophe but not know how to live toward eucatastrophe.

Russell Shaw’s article, “Let Your Kids Fail,” reveals that early exposure to setbacks can help children confront later disappointments without falling apart. His point is not that parents should abandon children to hardship, but that they should support them in ways that foster resilience. A failed test can become a lesson in perseverance. A broken friendship can become a lesson in confession and repair. A bad decision can become the beginning of wisdom. A missed opportunity can become the doorway to a better calling. If every mistake or trouble is treated as shameful or intolerable, then catastrophe becomes something to fear rather than something through which God will still work. This idea does not stop with children. Adults do the same thing. Churches do the same thing.

We fear failure so much that we protect ourselves from the conditions in which innovation becomes possible. We avoid risk because we do not want to lose face. We avoid experimentation because we do not want to be wrong. We avoid change because we do not want to bear the grief of letting something go. So, we settle for managing decline rather than risking Resurrection. Innovation requires courage, experimentation, and the freedom to fail and try again.

Eucatastrophe teaches us that catastrophe is not where the story stays. It does not mean every failure turns into visible success. It does mean that, in Christ, failure, loss, and disruption are no longer closed doors. Instead, they can become openings through which God does something new.

How Eucatastrophe Leads to Innovation in the Church

Eucatastrophe matters for innovation. Innovation is not about being creative, chasing after trends, or searching for relevance. Christian innovation is the courage to live and act because the Resurrection is true. In my previous article, “Innovation is Resurrection Work,” I frame innovation as part of God’s creative and renewing mission rather than a novelty.⁵  

Catastrophe in a church can come from the church’s own failures: poor leadership, conflict, spiritual stagnation, lack of courage, resistance to change, moral compromise, or loss of mission. Catastrophe can also come through circumstances affecting the church: demographic shifts, neighborhood change, economic disruption, secularization, pandemic fallout, denominational upheaval, or disconnection from the surrounding community. In either case, a congregation can experience rupture, grief, confusion, and the appearance of diminishment. The question is whether a church reacts to catastrophe as the end of the story or responds with the hopeful possibility that God can bring a redemptive turn.

Innovation begins when a church says, “This may feel catastrophic, but God is not finished.” It begins when leaders create space to experiment without shame. It begins when congregations learn that a failed attempt is not proof of unfaithfulness, but it may be part of the path of discernment. Innovation happens when we are willing to risk loss because we trust the risen Christ more than our inherited methods. This positions the church to be ready to imagine new things with God, and that innovation belongs to the church’s participation in God’s mission.

A Story of Eucatastrophe: Black River Falls United Methodist Church

Black River Falls United Methodist Church in rural Wisconsin offers a living example of this resurrection-shaped imagination. Rev. Thomas E. Kim writes in UM News that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rev. Inhwa Son saw a growing disconnect between the congregation and the surrounding community. Rather than retreat inward, the church launched a weekly Dinner Church. Kim writes that the ministry now prepares more than two hundred meals each week, and part of the parking lot has been transformed into a community garden. What looked like a catastrophic decline and diminishment became an opportunity for renewed relationship, deeper hospitality, fresh mission, and eucatastrophe.⁶

This story of innovation and revitalization is a reminder that when churches trust the God of eucatastrophe, decline need not be the end of the story. Loss can become the place where imagination is reborn. Disconnection can become the catalyst for deeper listening. What feels like an ending can become the soil for a new beginning.

So how do we train our churches to fail boldly? We teach the gospel. We teach that the cross looked like defeat, but the Resurrection revealed victory over death. We teach that endings are not always endings. We teach that loss can become soil. We teach that God is not absent in the mess. We teach churches to make room for experiments, honest reflection, repentance, courage, and hope. All this is because we believe in the God of eucatastrophe. If that is who God is, then the church need not live in fear of failure. The church can become a people who risk, learn, grieve, adapt, and begin again. It is not because catastrophe is pleasant or because every experiment succeeds; we do this because, in Jesus Christ, eucatastrophe is the final word.

Practicing Eucatastrophe: Practical Steps for Individuals and Churches

•    Tell the truth about catastrophe: Do not minimize failure, loss, grief, or disruption. Name what happened, what was lost, and what was broken. Eucatastrophe is not denial. It begins with honest truth-telling. The joyous turn, according to Tolkien, does not erase the catastrophe that preceded it.
•    Celebrate faithful risk and not just successful outcomes: Publicly affirm attempts even when they did not “work,” because faithful experimentation matters. 
•    Read scripture for its eucatastrophic patterns: Train people to notice how often God brings life from impossibility. When churches learn this biblical pattern, they become less afraid of apparent endings.
•    Ask the Resurrection question: When facing loss, ask the question, “Is this the end, or could this be the place where God is preparing a new beginning?” That question does not guarantee a happy ending on our timetable, but it keeps the church spiritually available to grace. This is a theological practice drawn from the Resurrection mindset at the heart of eucatastrophe.

Further Reading

•    Verlyn Flieger, editor, Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014.
•    Thomas E. Kim, “Around the Table, A Church Finds New life in rural Wisconsin,” (March 30, 2026), United Methodist News Service, https://www.umnews.org/en/news/around-the-table-a-church-finds-new-life-in-rural-wisconsin.
•    Isaiah Park, “Innovation is Resurrection Work,” Discipleship Ministries, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/innovation-is-resurrection-work.
•    Russell Shaw, “Let Your Kids Fail”  (February 4, 2026), The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/02/parenting-children-failure-immunity/685875/.
•    Y. J. Wong, B.S. Kim, C.P. Nguyen, J. K. Cheng, and A. Saw, “Interpersonal Shame Inventory for Asian Americans: Scale Development and Psychometric Properties,” Journal of Counseling Psychology, 61(1), 119–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034681.
 

¹Wong, Y. J., Kim, B. S., Nguyen, C. P., Cheng, J. K., & Saw, A. , “Interpersonal Shame Inventory for Asian Americans: Scale Development and Psychometric Properties,” Journal of Counseling Psychology, 61(1), 119–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034681.
²Shaw, Russell, “Let Your Kids Fail” (February 4, 2026), The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/02/parenting-children-failure-immunity/685875.
³ Flieger, Verlyn, editor, Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014.
⁴ Flieger, Verlyn, editor, Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. 
⁵ Park, Isaiah, “Innovation Is Resurrection Work“  (2026), Discipleship Ministries, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/innovation-is-resurrection-work.
⁶ Kim, Thomas E., “Around the Table, a Church Finds New Life in Rural Wisconsin”
(March 30, 2026), United Methodist News Service, https://www.umnews.org/en/news/around-the-table-a-church-finds-new-life-in-rural-wisconsin.