A number of years ago when showing a film (never say movie) in a Sunday night meeting meant hauling out the film projector and figuring out how to rig up some kind of sound enhancement, I decided to show a film series put out by a very popular sociologist.  His name is Tony Campolo…and the series was called “Who switched the price tags?”.  Any one else remember this?

No it wasn’t in black & white, but the idea of plugging a computer into a video projector and having theatre quality sound at church wasn’t even a thought that crossed my mind!  It seemed impossible.

One of the presentations by Tony was on a study done by a group of sociologists in the USA that asked a large number of people who were over 90 years of age this question: “If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?”  I have never forgotten this one theme that emerged from this elderly people.  They would take more risks.

Yet what is it that we fear most days …isn’t it risk?  Don’t we like to live safe, stable lives?  Isn’t it true that we prefer what we know than the unknown?

So why is it that this group of people said they would take MORE risks?  Perhaps it is because they realized that most of what we fear never happens – fear lives in our minds and is about what we imagine rather than what is reality.  Maybe these elders have learned something else – that when it is all said and done it is what we didn’t do that disappoints us more than what we did do.

Perhaps failure has more to do with what didn’t happen than what happened in an unsuccessful manner.

So what do you think you would like to risk?