The last time I launched something substantial through Still Forming was in 2011 and 2012, and it was the first two times I offered the Look at Jesus course — the first time as a group offering and the second time as a chance to walk through the course with just one person.

I learned so much from both experiences, and they’re what set me on my way this last year and a half to reconfigure the course into what it is today: an in-depth personal exploration in a one-on-one format that you can take at your own pace and in as great a depth as you’d like. 

Last Sunday was the launch. 

It happened unexpectedly for me. I finished working on the course, and suddenly there was the question: launch now, or wait until January, once the holidays pass? 

I decided, as you know, to launch now but to give early signups this month a reduced rate. And since the launch, I’ve been learning a few things. 

1. When you launch fast, you make mistakes. This isn’t a criticism of launching fast, but merely an observation. After the email announcement went out to you last Sunday night, I realized I’d sent it with several typos — a typo in the subject line, a font error in the first line, and then an error in my explanation of the reduced rate. 

For me, an editor by trade, these errors and typos bothered me. It was so tempting to go into panic mode. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to acknowledge I’d sent the email in a hurry, due to my excitement, and that such mishaps are bound to happen that way. (It also helped that several people to whom I mentioned the errors said they hadn’t even noticed.) 

2. It’s really vulnerable out here! For the first little while after launching, I coursed on adrenaline. There was certainly the “eeeep!” factor of having launched, but mainly I felt the high of finally doing it — finally putting into the world this experience I’d worked so long and hard to make beautiful, original, and meaningful. I was so glad to have it finally out there, out of my hands and available to share. 

But then came the vulnerability factor. The questions about how much and how often to share about its ongoing development on social media. The decision to put a blog post together that details the history of how the course came to be. The decision to create a 90-second promo video that shares my heart for you in this course. 

All such risks! You never really know if you’re “doing it right.” All you can do is try. Which leads me to my third learning …   

3. This is really so much like faith. I don’t know what will happen from here. I don’t know who will sign up, how they’ll experience the course, or what impact it will have upon their lives. All I know is that I followed the impulse I knew to be true — to pour all I am into creating this and then to set it free for others to receive — and the rest is out of my hands. 

It occurred to me this morning that this is a lot like faith. We gather what we know, acting on what we do have, and then we jump. There’s always something in there we don’t know, and there’s certainly much beyond the jump we don’t know either, but we take what we have and let it be enough to propel us over the edge. 

So I’ll keep jumping. In faith.

How are you experiencing mistakes, vulnerability, or faith in the jumping right now?    

Much love,
Christianne