Eventually, every pastor or staff member will do something about which a church member becomes angry or disappointed. I still remember the time a few weeks into my first pastorate when I learned this painful lesson. One of our deacons pulled me aside on our way to a meeting at the church to tell me that a fellow church member, whom he named, had complained that he had seen me at the post office and I didn’t wave.
My first reaction was disbelief, because I grew up in the country where waving at everybody, even strangers, was a commonly-held value which I had continued to practice! I couldn’t imagine that I would have failed to wave at someone I had actually seen. Disbelief was followed rapidly by fear. Was this kind of criticism something I would regularly encounter as a pastor? I later learned it was.
Jim White
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The wise old deacon who had drawn me aside must have read my mind because he counseled, “Pastor, don’t let this get to you. Chances are pretty good that somebody or other will be upset about something most of the time. Just keep on doing the best you know how to do.”
Subsequent criticisms were occasionally more harsh, and, at times, more deserved than that first experience. Through the years, as I dissected my own experiences and as I witnessed what my pastoral colleagues encountered, I developed principles that helped guide me during times of criticism.
First, no leader is immune. Although most of us begin ministry with a certain idealistic belief that we will escape the criticisms and pitfalls others have encountered, realism has a way of snatching our heads out of the clouds and planting our feet squarely on the ground. It is comforting to know from a biblical overview the even some of God’s choicest leaders had to deal with severe criticism. The Israelites complained that Moses had led them into the wilderness to die. David’s own son led an armed rebellion (now that’s criticism of the highest order!); and even Jesus was criticized.
If you are a young pastor, it isn’t a question of “if,” but “when.” You will be criticized. And, if you are a deacon, not only will your pastor be criticized, but you may be as well!
I learned, secondly, to ask, ”Who is doing the criticizing?” Although rarely would I advocate completely dismissing a criticism, every experienced pastor knows not all critics speak with the same moral authority. Some people just seem to be naturally critical. Many of them know this about themselves, in fact. Although criticism from someone like this should be easier to dismiss, that isn’t always the case. Even if wrongly applied, the lashes of critical comments still sting.
Sometimes we are approached with second-hand information from a nebulous source. “A lot of people are saying …,” someone might begin. Whenever someone came to me with such a charge, I learned to listen without interrupting until they were finished. Then I asked, “Does this reflect your own feeling about the matter?” Often, it did.
At this point, I wanted to affirm them for coming directly to me to talk. Very few of us really enjoy confrontation, so chances are it took a lot of “working up to it” before they summoned the courage to talk with me. This not only truthfully expressed my own thoughts, but it enabled us to begin talking on friendly terms rather than starting as adversaries. I sometimes seized the opportunity to commend his commitment to following biblical guidelines about how we are to resolve our differences as set forth in Matthew 18.
Third, take the criticism as seriously as it deserves. Although I can’t claim to have always been successful, I have tried to ask what kernel of truth existed in the criticism that I needed to take seriously and apply. If the criticism was something I could benefit from, I tried to enlist their help in working with me to overcome it.
When a member of the congregation came to me saying he was appalled by the number of grammatical mistakes in my sermon, I responded, “I am so glad you brought this to my attention. Sometimes in the middle of a sentence I forget whether I began with a singular or plural subject, so I’m sure your concerns are valid. Moreover, I have the same concerns. Would you please keep track of every grammatical error I make so I can work to correct them?”
Sheepishly, he agreed that he would. He never brought the subject up again.
Sometimes, however, we are not in a position to know how seriously we should take someone’s appraisal. For that reason, it is good to appeal to a third party who is friend enough to tell us the truth —even if it is painful.
A fourth objective was to gain an accurate understanding of how widespread the criticism is. Almost without exception, someone who says something to you will exaggerate the number of persons who hold the same opinion in order to bolster the force of his concerns. I would ask for a specific number of people about whom he or she could say with absolute certainty that they felt the same way.
I then asked for names so I could go to them and work through our issues as Jesus taught. In my experiences, sometimes they will share names and sometimes they will say they do not have permission to divulge other persons’ names. In that case, I asked if he or she would promise to contact every person with whom they had talked, share the substance of our conversation and urge them to come talk.
In 25 years of pastoral ministry, only once did personal conversations, sometimes over a period of time, fail to erase or at least to ease the tension between us. On that occasion, our deacons became involved with the upshot being that the person left the church.
In some ways, effective leadership serves as a lightning rod for criticism. It is naïve to think we are somehow immune. But criticism can offer new ways to become better people if we can take it seriously enough to learn but not so seriously that we are crushed.
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.