In an article identifying “eight essential qualities of pastors who love their jobs”, Sam Rainer identifies the second one as “They don’t take criticism personally”. On one level, I agree with this if by it, he means that you need to hear all the critiques without taking it too much to heart. There can be all kinds of reasons as to why someone will criticise you. These include the obvious point that you have done something, individually or as a church leadership which needs challenging. Sometimes, the criticism reflects though more about what is going on in the person concerned life and how their current or past experience affects how they react to you.
However, I would argue that at times, criticism can be deeply personal. Sometimes, that’s unintentional. The other person has been seeking to make a genuine point but has made it in a clumsy, unhelpful way. Sometimes though it is intentional. We may never know why and there may not be a particularly rational reason for it but the other person has taken against you and your family.
Then there are the times when the criticism appears to be about a ministry, project or such like but when you ask for specific examples, nothing seems to be forthcoming. Perhaps at that point you might want to consider that it does come down to a personality clash.
Finally, sometimes it is personal because the other person wants to challenge or oppose something that you are saying or doing but cannot come up with a legitimate argument and so they choose to attack you as a person, questioning your motives ad character.
The example Sam gives is fascinating: He says:
They don’t take criticism personally. This one took me a while to learn. I remember many years ago, a member criticized my wife in front of everyone for how she led worship.
“That wasn’t real worship! How terrible!” This member then added a few other choice comments about my wife.
I responded, “There are plenty of other dead churches in this town who would welcome another corpse if you don’t like it here.”
It was not my finest moment. But this instance—and many others—taught me to listen, reflect, and discern whether there’s a lesson to be learned from someone’s criticism. Usually, there is. Pastors who love their jobs learn from criticism without it affecting their personal worth or dedication.
https://churchanswers.com/blog/eight-essential-qualities-of-pastors-who-love-their-jobs/?fbclid=IwAR3IWuLFHgfN23h4HWWj0an0tODbsXCX-VqMJ8fM0-oMfE_niMNFPn7MLZ8_aem_AftcPrf4LGuSXEHACN1Gngjct3dQDKiSnO_IGiZjUlghHPuy-P77oU9EHn6t5HSIb_CnzDwo_v9VunY8lTVEklc_
Now, perhaps his immediate response was intemperate and unhelpful, even if understandable. However, I would argue that the example is exactly of someone being personal. They have chosen to make “choice comments about [Sam’s] wife.” Of course, it is true that part of the deeper reflection there, Sam and the church elders may have agreed that there were challenges about the way that their church worshipped. In that sense, it wasn’t personal.
However, it was personal because the person chose to focus on Sam’s wife. Indeed, I think that’s the point. It was personal to her, This meant it was personal to Sam and not because in some kind of patriarchal manner, he had been dishonoured by how someone dared to speak to his wife. Rather, if someone chooses to attack your family, then you will have a concern for their well-being and you will want to defend them. Indeed, given the one flesh nature of marriage, it goes deeper. An attack on my wife is an attack on both of us as one united flesh.
We cannot rush on without noting at this point that wives and families feel it when their husband/faither comes under attack as a leader in the church.
In this particular case, I think that it should not have been left with Sam or his wife to deal with the matter. I hope it wasn’t. Rather, the other elders should have stepped in to talk, lovingly but correctively to the church member. They could recognise that the person may have had a fair complaint to make but also be clear with them that they should not turn their concerns into a personal attack on another member of the church.
What I think that all of this means is that if someone offers criticism that we shoudn’t take it personally in terms of allowing it to disrupt our relationship with the Lord or the church. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. We won’t get on with everyone and that shouldn’t worry us too much.
However, we should be ready to take on board what has been said when it does, rightly touch on our character and we should also be ready to challenge people when they inappropriately launch personal attacks on others.
Faithroots 