How to Honour the Past Without Repeating Its Mistakes

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There’s a tension every leader must hold:

We want to honour the leaders who came before us—our spiritual mothers and fathers, mentors, pastors, pioneers. We stand on their shoulders. We’re here because they said yes when it was hard, stayed faithful when no one was watching, and paid a price so we could walk in legacy.

But what happens when their ceiling becomes our floor… and that floor is full of cracks?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

You can honour someone’s sacrifice without repeating their dysfunction. You can celebrate their obedience without copying their blind spots.

The call of leadership in this generation isn’t to imitate everything that worked before—it’s to extract the eternal and confront the unhealthy.

Because if we romanticize the past, we’ll institutionalize the very pain they prayed we’d be free from.

Here’s how to hold that tension well:

1. Choose Celebration Over Deconstruction

Honour doesn’t mean silence—but it does mean respect. Instead of mocking previous movements, celebrate what was faithful and fruitful. If you’re going to critique, do it from a place of stewardship—not superiority.

2. Name the Broken Systems Without Attacking the People

You can challenge mindsets, methods, and systems without assassinating people’s character. Leaders often did the best they could with what they had. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grow, adapt, or reform. Call out dysfunction with humility and clarity.