Unsexy Church
Unsexy Church
Season 2 Episode 51: On Taking Criticism
Receiving criticism can be tough for anyone, but what is it like when the criticism comes in the context of ministry? This week, we dive into the often challenging topic of handling criticism as a Pastor. Pastor Bob opens up about the inevitable critiques that come with being in the public eye and discusses how humility can help pastors—and believers alike—process feedback constructively. We explore the importance of trusted voices who provide valuable insight into our lives. Criticism is a very human part of ministry, so join us this week as Pastor Trent and Pastor Bob talk about both helpful and unhelpful criticism, and how they manage and grow from it.
Hey everybody, we're back at it Podcast today. It's been a couple weeks, bob, how are you? I'm doing okay, doing better. Soccer team's doing well, they're doing okay, you're feeling better.
Speaker 2:They're moving along in the playoffs and I'm slowly getting over the cold I brought back from the Dominican.
Speaker 1:You're coughing less. I am thankfully you were about to lose your voice during the sermon on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Well, I had lost my voice while we were in the Dominican and it came back enough that I could preach on Sunday. So it was good, but we're all good, you're all good. Why didn't you do a podcast while I was out of town, man, I don't know.
Speaker 3:He hates doing them without you. I know that's what it is, that's not it?
Speaker 1:What is the podcast that, pastor Bob?
Speaker 2:That's not it at all. You were just busy, sure Lazy.
Speaker 1:I wasn't lazy, I don't know. It feels like Thursday. I had something I was doing specifically on Thursday. Do you remember I wasn't?
Speaker 3:Were you at USF? No, that was the week before that.
Speaker 1:I feel like I was somewhere on Thursday, though I couldn't be here. I don't remember. I don't remember either Because I said I had to record on Wednesday if I was going to record it.
Speaker 2:Our faithful listeners tune in every Monday waiting for a new podcast, and you disappointed them last week.
Speaker 1:I know I'm always encouraged to hear who listens to the podcast. Someone just the other day was telling me that they were going back through every episode they could, which is a lot of episodes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've done quite a few now.
Speaker 1:It was Donnie and Caroline. They were listening to the episodes so that was kind of cool. So I think they said they were like starting back at like number one and had gone through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was at breakfast this morning and mentioned that he'd been listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1:That's encouraging. Hello, donnie, what's up? Well, hey, jordan, how are you? He didn't have a mic. He said very good, kara, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm doing all right, I'm sad. Why are you sad? We all know they lost to the.
Speaker 1:Super Bowl. Oh no yeah, they just played an awful game. The Eagles played a really good game too. Eagles played a great game. Chiefs played a terrible game I think, unless you just really hate the chiefs, it wasn't that fun of a game to watch either, because it's never that fun when one team's just dominating the other.
Speaker 2:You kind of want a match to be close unless it's a team that's won a bunch and you want to see them lose, then it's kind of fun, that's so.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think the defense so the eagles offense did great, but I think the defense just killed it.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure, oh so how has your life changed? Since it's not the football, it's not, not at all.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I don't get like super sad, it's just like, oh man, that would be cool. I'm sure there are people that are like emotionally distressed and financially distressed some of them yeah, not me, not me, uh. But by the fourth quarter I was like this is just not a fun game to watch anymore, right, I mean it's just totally one-sided, they're not gonna win. And then, of course, the chiefs decided to play.
Speaker 2:They got three touchdowns in the but for those of us that were sitting at home, knowing that you were not enjoying it, it was kind of enjoyable, yeah it was a great night.
Speaker 3:I loved thinking about how trent was, I got a.
Speaker 1:I got a few texts. The one another thing I don't like having like living on the east coast, east eastern part of the United States, eastern time zone when it comes to sports, because I don't stay up late at night and some of those football games that start at like seven or so. Of course, super Bowl start at 6 30 our time, but some games that start at 7 or even 8 aren't done until midnight and that's awful. So of course, if you live on the West Coast, football games are happening during church services.
Speaker 1:So, that's tough, it's rough. It shouldn't be tough, but it is tough For some preachers. Their congregation doesn't show up. Dvr, dvr.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? I don't think it's called DVR, dvr.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's called DVR anymore.
Speaker 2:Pastor Bob, what is it called when you record something or you?
Speaker 1:tape something Recording something.
Speaker 2:But isn't there a button when you're going through that says DVR?
Speaker 1:Maybe if you have cable or satellite. Yes, yeah, I don't have that, I don't anymore. I just have like the Fubo, which is like what I have during football season.
Speaker 2:So you can watch it anytime you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's your problem?
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, yeah, period, pass it around, come on, come on now.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, I have a fact for you and I don't know if you know this or not. You may know this. Do you know Mac Robinson? I don't think I do.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're about to, Unless he's a no, that's John Robinson.
Speaker 1:No, go ahead, I don't know a.
Speaker 2:Mac Robinson.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin, berlin. And Adolf Hitler was, of course, there present, along with a lot of swastikas. I can't say it in the 100,000-person stadium where the track was. Do you remember who won the 200 that?
Speaker 1:year from USA, jesse Owens. His name was Jesse Owens. He had just gotten the brand-new pair of Adidas which he exhibited running very well in winning the 200-meter dash. I think he ran somewhere like a 20.7, uh, 20 seconds and 0.7 seconds and set a new world record at the time. Behind him was another uh athlete, another black athlete from the United States, which Adolph was not happy about, and he won second place silver medal from the United States.
Speaker 1:His name was Mack Robinson place silver medal from the united states. His name was mac robinson. He did not have a new pair of sneakers, he just just missed gold medal. I think he ran a 21.1. Okay, uh, mac went to pasadena junior college. Uh, not much time later he actually went back to pasadena and was a street sweeper back to Pasadena and was a street sweeper until the. I guess the city, due to the time period, got rid of people that were black on the streets serving in such a role. Why I tell you this? Because Mack Robinson had a brother. Any ideas who Mack Robinson's brother was? Eddie, it was Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 3:Jackie Jackie Robinson Jackie.
Speaker 1:Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 2:That's cool.
Speaker 1:Isn't that kind of cool. So you have two very competitive brothers, Mack and Jackie Mack was in the Olympics just behind Jesse Owens. Mackie and Jackie Mackie and. Jackie, they both have large statues in Pasadena now, but I thought that was kind of cool. That's the fact of the day. That's a cool fact have you seen the movie what's?
Speaker 2:it called Run about Jesse Owens and the 36 Olympics. I have not.
Speaker 1:I would love to see it. It's a good movie. I did watch the movie. There was a number of movies that came out around that time. When Run came out, the Nike movie came out around that time. When Run came out, the Nike movie came out around then which was called Air, and there was like another historic movie that came out, but I have not seen Run yet. Have you seen? It is a rated R movie, so we're bringing up the podcast. But have you seen Gladiator 2?
Speaker 2:We are bringing it up.
Speaker 1:I'm bringing it up on the podcast. Have you seen Gladiator 2? No, have you seen gladiator 2? We are bringing it up. I'm bringing up on the podcast. Have you seen gladiator 2? No, I was a big fan of gladiator 1, which, by the way, I'm thankful as a radar movie.
Speaker 1:There's very little, uh, relational things can you say that intimacy things. And gladiator 1 there's also very little, if any. In gladiator 2 it's, it's an epic, it's uh, there's a little bit of language, there's a lot of action sequences, blood and gore, blood and gore, but honestly, in the Gladiator movies there's not as much as so many other movies today. So I watched Gladiator 2 and it was a good movie. I was thankful. It was very similar. It's like they kind of had the template of what to do because of how successful the first movie was and they follow that template, but they did connect it with the first movie.
Speaker 1:I've been a big gladiator fan for a long time. In fact, when I was in middle school, the cross country coach that we had our high school cross country coach who's in the hall of fame, I think even the national hall of fame. It's one like 40 state championships or something crazy like that between men's and women's cross country. Uh, I was like an eighth grader running in the morning with the high school guys, cause he let eighth graders, seventh graders do that and one morning he would just like kind of just randomly come in and say hey, we're not running this morning, we're watching gladiator, and so we watched gladiator.
Speaker 1:So I and my parents didn't know the time and probably weren't very happy when they found out we're not running.
Speaker 1:We're not running. Every once in a while we'd get up either at 6, 15 am. He'd call us in the locker room and say I got some news to share with you, and then we'd just kind of give a John Wooden quote and talk about it for 30 minutes before we ran. Well, hey, I have a question for you, pastor Bob. Yes, man. Well, hey, I have a question for you, pastor Bob. Yes, sir, I want you to rank some items. We've been doing the ranking. We've been doing a lot of ranking lately. I think it's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think people like it. So I want you to rank 10 Super Bowl foods. Now, some of these you know might be oh, you don't want to eat that this year. Well, I tried, I had to come up with 10. So, jordan, you have a copy of this. Carrie, you have a copy of this. I need the pen that you just took, carrie, but we're going to rank these big game foods. There are 10 of them. I'll read them off and we'll give our rankings Soft pretzels, a veggie tray.
Speaker 2:There's nine of them by the way.
Speaker 1:Well, there's nine Soft pretzels a veggie tray sliders, wings, pizza pigs in a blanket charcuterie, nacho chips and dip, which is the same thing. We're going to put that in one category. And then meatballs I'll say that again Soft pretzels, veggie tray sliders, wings, pizza pigs in a blanket charcuterie, nachos, slash chips and dip, and meatballs. You have an easy number one you want to share.
Speaker 2:Are we going top to bottom or bottom to top?
Speaker 1:I always like going bottom to top.
Speaker 2:So number number 10, number nine, number nine that's right, because you said it was 10, but there's only nine, correct? Um? So when I'm I don't eat a ton when I'm watching games, but if I do I'm not eating healthy. Okay, so I would say, um, charcuterie and veggie would be nine and eight on my list. Okay, I'm not a huge soft pretzel guy, so I'm not either I'm not either, and pigs in the blanket involves said stuff so six would be next um nachos cheese five okay um meatballs, probably four sliders, three wings to pizza One.
Speaker 1:Ours are very similar. Pizza is number one. Yeah, what's your favorite local pizza place?
Speaker 2:Uh, we like Atlas, it's down near us yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, what kind of pizza is it? New York style? Oh yeah, then Okay, greasy.
Speaker 2:No, not not terribly bad.
Speaker 1:Uh, is it, is it is. It just has got off as the other guy. Uh, um, is it crispy on the bottom or does it flop? Um, it flops a little bit, flops, okay, yeah, I didn't know how to exactly say that. Yep, all right, what about you care?
Speaker 3:can I start with my favorite? Uh, sure no I have to go with the lowest. Yep, well, the three lowest, I don't really. They're all kind of in the same category.
Speaker 3:Veggie tray. For obvious reasons I put pigs in a blanket and then sliders, because I don't really have sliders like that and then I might just be incredibly unintelligent. It's hard for me to count backwards. So nine, eight, seven, six, pizza. Six is pizza for me, and then five is charcuterie. Four is nachos. I like nachos. Three is a soft pretzel. Soft pretzel is delicious. I know you had it so low on the list I'm judging over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like pretzels and that hurt so bad.
Speaker 3:I love soft pretzel. Riley had these soft pretzel bites at her little place.
Speaker 2:Do you like them with mustard, or do you like them with cinnamon sugar?
Speaker 1:Oh, cinnamon sugar Come on Cinnamon sugar is really good.
Speaker 3:I like them with mustard and I like them with cheese. I just like soft pretzels. Okay, fair enough, I just like soft pretzels.
Speaker 1:Soft pretzels to me are similar to bagels, where it's just kind of hard bread Okay.
Speaker 3:It's a little too chewy and hard bread, and you're allowed to have the opinions that you have, trent.
Speaker 1:I am allowed, thank you. Thank you for giving the space to hear my opinion. For sure, go ahead.
Speaker 3:This is a safe space for you to be wrong.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it.
Speaker 3:My top two are wings and meatballs, just for obvious reasons, I think, because they're saucy and full of meat.
Speaker 1:Saucy and full of meat. Boneless wings Bone-in wings.
Speaker 3:I like bone-in wings. What's your flavor? I don't know Whatever. The red one is Buffalo wings. I'm not a huge buffalo wing fan. Honey barbecue. Anything on wings, I like garlic parm. Garlic parm is great Did you rank these Jordan?
Speaker 1:Do you want to share yours? It's pretty much the same as Pastor Bob's. Same as Pastor Bob's.
Speaker 2:See, we got taste on this side of the table. Follow wisdom.
Speaker 1:Okay, the only thing I would switch. The gray hair is wisdom's crown Wings.
Speaker 3:I would switch the pizza. I would personally switch the pizza and the wings. Wings go first. Fair enough, so pizza's number two.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, I'm going to go. I'm not a huge pizza fan, so it has to be like the right pizza, and usually big game pizza is not the best pizza to me. I like the Detroit style, Chicago style, and a lot of times it's New York style, which is okay, All right. Meatballs is my least favorite Meatballs, just have to be really really good Now I do like meatballs.
Speaker 2:I don't even think they have to be good. You're ranking a charcuterie board above meatballs, barely Barely.
Speaker 3:I don't even think meatballs have to be good for me to just be eating them.
Speaker 1:Because here's why. Here's why A charcuterie board oftentimes has dips and stuff and I'm all for the dips. That's not my number one. It's nacho cheese and dips and stuff, chips and dip, all right Meatballs, then veggie tray, then charcuterie Meatballs last, all kind of in that category. The meatballs just have to be really good.
Speaker 3:No, they don't. They just have to be warm and have barbecue sauce on them, all right.
Speaker 1:That's all. Then soft pretzels, then five. I like pigs in a blanket, especially. Pigs in a blanket are mostly like the crispy bread, like a croissant style bread, right.
Speaker 2:Can be.
Speaker 1:I'm a fan of. That Can be All right, for pizza depends on the style. Three sliders, two wings, one nacho cheese and dip or nachos chips and dip, so whatever like French onion dip or whatever. I like the chips and dip. So if I'm picking anything on here, it is wings and then chips and dip. That's what I want.
Speaker 3:Meatballs and wings.
Speaker 1:I've just had bad meatballs. I've had bad ones, so topic of the day. So I want us to talk about criticism.
Speaker 2:Can I criticize your choice in foods? No, you cannot.
Speaker 1:I do not allow it.
Speaker 2:That's the end of this conversation. Okay.
Speaker 1:Do we embrace criticism?
Speaker 3:No, no, we do not. Anyone that criticizes you they say your opinions are wrong.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, you're always right. Correct opinions, okay. So topic of the day I want to talk about criticism. Is criticism a good thing, or is it a good thing for a minister to a pastor to receive and embrace criticism? How do they embrace or receive encouragement, comments, feedback or what have you? And I want to begin with a verse of Scripture, proverbs 15, 31 through 32, probably one of the most common verses regarding criticism. It says this the ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself. But he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. So is being open to criticism and accepting correction a sign of wisdom? Well, the Bible says yes.
Speaker 1:So is there a biblical precedent or encouragement to receive criticism? Yes, proverbs 15, 31-32?.
Speaker 2:Oh, clearly, yes, yes, of course.
Speaker 1:How do you? Pastor Bob, as a pastor you're a public figure. You stand before a number of people any given week, multiple times a week, sharing the words of the Lord, so one could criticize you for content. I disagree with you on that. Or I don't really like his preaching style, or he preaches too long, or he looks funny sometimes. I don't know. Uh, how do you receive criticism? Do you receive it often? Uh, do you welcome it? Make room for it? Where do you receive it?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of questions you just threw in there. You always like to throw like 10 questions in the first question by email, right to your face. All of the above, and in 36 years of doing this, I've received a lot of criticisms. Yeah Right, some which are true and some which I probably disagree with. So, yes, I've received criticism. Do I like it? No, I'm a human being.
Speaker 2:You strive to do your very best but at the same time, you have to be humble enough to recognize you're not perfect. You need to learn things and some people see things from a different lens that you have a blind spot to, and it's helpful to see it. So I always try to look at the spirit of the one bringing the criticism. Is it constructive, is it from a good place? But regardless of whether it's constructive or not, or even regardless of whether it comes from a good place or not, I still need to listen to it, to say is there an Inkling of truth to this?
Speaker 2:Do I? Am I blind to something that I'm not aware of? So I think it's wise to listen to criticism, being careful not to be overwhelmed by it, because we tend to. You get ten attaboys and you hear one negative comment. You forget the ten attaboys and you remember one negative comment, and so you can't be overwhelmed by them, but you have to Listen to them and then see okay, is what they're saying true? Is it helpful? Do I need to consider it from a different perspective?
Speaker 1:Do you then weigh criticism by the person who brings it?
Speaker 2:I think that would be fair to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So your wife says something probably has greater weight than someone you've never met before, who sees you preach one time and gives a large criticism.
Speaker 2:Not just my wife, somebody who's a faithful church member, who's here week after week and I've heard many times yeah, I'm probably going to give a little more weight to that conversation than somebody who just walked in and has never seen me before in their life, doesn't know anything about me.
Speaker 1:That's right, because they know your heart. They know maybe you seem really heavy talking about this subject, but maybe that's the time that you've talked about that subject once in the last year, right, you talked about money. You just want money, pastor, maybe that's the first sermon you've ever heard and it's the one sermon given in the last year about money or something Correct yeah yeah, okay, what about you?
Speaker 2:I never receive criticism. We can correct that if you'd like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Typically I will ask my wife I try not to in the moment, right after I'm done preaching, or something. Hey, did I communicate that well?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:A lot of times my thoughts are in preparation, I'm going to teach a certain way, I have a certain thing in mind, and yet oftentimes how we intend to communicate something is not always how it is perceived. So I'm asking the questions like was that perceived in the way you think I intended to communicate that? Was I too heavy handed? Was I too soft? Yada yada. And so my wife is very helpful because she knows everything about me that other people may not know.
Speaker 2:So her criticism is weighed heavily Sure and I think it's important for us to have particular people that we ask to critique us, whether it's in our preaching, our presentation, are we coming across the way we intend to, is it in our leadership. There are certain people that you need to give license in your life to say help me see what I don't see, and so that's got to be a tight-knit group of people that you genuinely trust, that have the church's best interest at heart, your best interest at heart, and who love you and genuinely will speak to you. So I think we ought to seek out constructive criticism as well as just receive it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do think as well. On top of that, every criticism can be constructive in some sort of way, Even if it's bad criticism, like there's no grounding for it it humbles us, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, right, which is a good thing. Right, there's this old adage I don't know if it's true or not where one of the famous caesars in rome had someone hired to follow along. You know, uh, into whispering his ear, you're only a man. Have you heard this before? Yeah, whether that's true or not, right, I mean, we all need to be humbled sometimes, right? Uh, we need to be very careful about putting ourselves above criticism. We are only a man, sure.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's the subject of the criticism, so if it's content, okay, I'm going to listen to that pretty closely. Maybe you didn't hear what I said, because you and I both spend a great deal of time in our study before we present something to the church.
Speaker 1:It's probably true to say that we spend more time on content than we do communication or delivery. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So to hear a criticism about I don't like what you said here, then I'm going to go back and go. Okay, did I articulate it properly? But if it's, I don't like the fact that you wore blue jeans when you preach this Sunday, or I don't like the way that you wore blue jeans when you preach this Sunday or I don't like the way you part your hair.
Speaker 1:You can say my wife doesn't wink Right.
Speaker 2:So it just depends if it's delivery, if it's a style, if it's a personal preference. Again, you can learn from those things. But what's the subject of the criticism is important.
Speaker 1:And because content is so important to us I think probably even in our writing at least I do this I would assume you do some version of this. You're kind of, if you have to make an interpretive decision, trying to discover what the author meant when he wrote it to this particular group of people say, paul to the church at Philippi you're actually kind of forming arguments in your head, for this is how I would defend the position I hold here for what he means here.
Speaker 1:And so you're almost not that you're writing defensively, but you're giving an apologetic for the interpretation that you take, whether that's a part of the sermon or not, and so we want to be open to other opinions that are valid and yet be prepared to give a defense for the interpretation we took of a given passage. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like last night, I'm in a passage of scripture about head coverings, right, and we obviously don't believe that women are bound to wear head coverings in services. We don't talk about that. We think it's a cultural issue in Corinth. But there might be someone who says I've studied it and we give room for you. Right, You're walking over, you're head covering, what have you? Yeah, All right, so let's talk about some specifics, if you don't mind. Well, one more thing before we talk about specifics. It was not too long ago. I heard a podcast where a particular church pastor actually has a sermon review time where he invites anyone who's on staff or not on staff, but was a regular preacher or does preaching for the church, to basically critique the sermon. Weird, not weird over the top. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I think it's personal preference. I don't know that it's weird or not weird. I don't know that it's over the top. I think it's. If somebody wants that much input, then they should go seek that out.
Speaker 2:If they are crafting their voice and how they preach. I think that's helpful. There are times you and I just have conversations. You know, here's what I'm thinking about in this text, here's how I'm thinking about presenting it. So we kind of do that in the front end and every now and then we'll say did that come across like I want it? So you and I do that a little bit, but we don't have a team around us that does that. So there's nothing wrong with it. It's just I don't think there's anything wrong with it. There's just um personal growth and what, what, what you use to um grow as a communicator I don't use a team, I just kind of use ai.
Speaker 1:I'm kidding. So yeah, sometimes I'll walk into your office, to darren's office, and say, hey, how does it sound?
Speaker 3:right.
Speaker 1:Does this make sense? So I want to kind of look at some criticisms maybe that you've received in the past. Some encouragements you've received in the past Of course share with your own discretion. So criticisms maybe about pastoring, about preaching, or about your own personality Some people just don't like personality, right. What have these things taught you? Have they shaped your ministry so? Can you give any example, a list of questions here? Can you give any example of a frustrating and maybe unhelpful criticism you've received in ministry? I didn't think of examples for myself either.
Speaker 2:Well, and I haven't, as I've walked in here, I can think of more helpful than I can unhelpful examples. I mean there's tons of unhelpful examples.
Speaker 3:I just can't without just being petty.
Speaker 1:I've probably received one in the past and it would be, I would say, unhelpful. Not because they were acting in any sort of way ungodly, unhelpful because my theological inclination or path doesn't lead that direction. And so someone once told me, young in ministry, I need to be more prophetic, and what they meant by prophetic was basically prophesy over someone. This is not where I land theologically.
Speaker 1:So not that it was necessarily unhelpful, but it was practically unhelpful. This is not where I land theologically. So not that it was necessarily unhelpful, but it was practically unhelpful. It's not where I land theologically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's times where, ironically, I can preach a message to a congregation and have somebody critique it and say it was too long, and somebody else critique it and say it should have gone longer. Somebody can critique it and say you got too deep and other people would say you didn't go deep enough. So it's yeah those things aren't particularly helpful.
Speaker 1:I find when I I feel like this is somebody pastor says someone's cliche. But it has been true in my ministry that I will preach and feel like it went well. And now I'll ask my wife and she's like, eh, you know, and she's she'll like eh, and she'll be honest, she's very kind, but she'll be honest and I appreciate that. And then I'll go up to her and I say man, that was rough, how was it? And I'll wait a few hours so that I'm not dependent on just everybody's response to what I say. She'll say no, I thought that was really good.
Speaker 2:And I'm like praise the Lord, because I did not think that went well at all. So, okay, what is an example of a difficult but helpful criticism you received in your ministry Early on? I'm such a type A task-oriented person. I get a job in front of me and I just want to get it done.
Speaker 2:And so, early on on, I had to learn, and through wisdom from godly men around me, um, that people aren't an interrupted interruption in my ministry, cause oftentimes I would just, even as a young guy trying to get sermons ready for Wednesday nights or whatever it may have been, I just put my head down and go to work and, uh, if something interrupts that, it, it. It was troubling to me and I had to learn early on the people aren't interruptions in your ministry, the people are your ministry, and so that was a. That was an early critique that was extremely helpful to me that I still today have to be aware of because I my nature hasn't changed. I still would go in my office and write sermons and Bible studies for hours every day, but, um, this is just a strong, good, loving critique in my ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, and preaching keeping it simple, uh is helpful for me, and then also the power of illustration. I mean, I knew it but it is a good reminder. So you know, I lean to being to probably exhortation through explanation and I'm OK with application, but illustration is uniquely helpful. I think people will remember illustrations that we give longer than they remember the text that was in that. We gave it Right. So illustrations are very helpful, I think early on in ministry. I became a pastor at a very young age, while I was still in school, and so school was teaching me a lot of academic work. But pastoring a small country church with people that lived out in the country, just visiting them, was something that I didn't even know was a thing in pastoral ministry, and so I learned the quality of that importance of that.
Speaker 1:What's an example of an encouraging criticism, helpful criticism. Someone encouraged you in a way and it just really it really helped you in your ministry. I really appreciate the way you did this and so you emphasize that Sure.
Speaker 2:I had two mentors in pastoral ministry one who was just an excellent preacher, expositor, pulpiteer, and another who was just a godly leader of people. And so I learned from both of them that there's a balance there, that you have to do the work to be a good expositor of the word, but you also just have to love people and lead people. And you can talk to them all day in the pulpit, but you got to demonstrate it in your walk. You can tell them you love them, all you want, but you've got to demonstrate it. And so again early on in ministry, just having those two men speak into my life, pointing out where I was excelling in some areas and needing to excel in others, so that was helpful for me.
Speaker 1:When I think about pastors getting fired, I think the top reason pastors are probably fired are either personality differences or character issues is number one. Number two is administrative, significant problems. Number three is probably preaching or doctrine right. So people really value how you treat them right. And so if you have an issue with someone rarely is it, will it continue as a doctrinal issue unless there's some significant doctrine you hit when you got hired. But a lot of times people really, really you know the old proverb people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so if we're receiving criticism in ministry, hopefully it's not because we're careless. Right, we are careful with the text. Hopefully we're also careful and care reading with people. In what way do you think a young pastor, young minister or a young believer might encourage criticism in their life in a good way? Right, how might we open ourselves up to people speaking into our life in ways that is helpful but sometimes hurts a little bit?
Speaker 2:Sure, the first way is just doing that intentionally and giving people license to do that. Specific people like asking them to do that. So people that you trust, people that you know, people that you know have the church's best interest at heart in you. So giving them license to do that in your life, to say, hey look, if I'm just being a dummy right here, I need somebody to call me out on that. But then also just building relationships with people where it's outside the pulpit, where you have conversations with people and you're talking to them just on a daily basis or a regular basis, and so they feel more free to have conversation with you. That's just at a genuine level, where they're not holding you up on some kind of false pedestal that they don't think you should be knocked off of, nor do they put you on a pedestal in order to knock you off of it. So just being genuine in relationships, I would say. So being intentional and being genuine would be my encouragement.
Speaker 1:Do you think we have an unhealthy relationship with our work if someone critiques our work and it destroys us? Probably.
Speaker 2:Probably, but you'd have to define work, because my life's work is the ministry and so I'm going to hold that tightly, I'm going to be very careful about that protective of it. Yeah, so, but yeah, if I'm just utterly destroyed by one word of criticism, that's a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and probably making it a practice to welcome critique can help on a kind of like an unhealthy relationship with your infallibility, with your work, right, right, I mean we, we, we can make mistakes, we can improve. We have to remember that and opening ourselves up to critique, asking the questions, praying before and praying after, lord, help me to have you know the phrase tough skin but a soft heart in receiving criticism. Let this help my heart but also not destroy my mind, as I, you know, try to improve in any given way that, lord, you might improve me, give me more wisdom. So, inviting critique, praying that it wouldn't destroy your soul, destroy your relationship with the Lord, destroy your ministry, but actually improve it, as the proverb encourages us to welcome critique so that it might improve.
Speaker 2:I would say stay humble, be a lifelong learner. Recognize that I don't care how long you do this. There's still things you don't know. There's still things that you don't do well. Recognize your own weaknesses. We all have them, and so if a, if a criticism comes in an area of weakness, acknowledge it and go. You know you're right. I need to work on that or help me to work on that. So, yeah, just just a humility of knowing we all continually grow. I'm still learning. After all these years and many different roles. I'm still learning how to lead people and how to be a good preacher and a better pastor.
Speaker 1:I think it's right to say criticism. It can be and is probably weighed by the person giving it, but every criticism can be constructive.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. Yeah, to that I would. I think we said this already, but I would add weight to the criticism of those that I trust more than criticism of those that I barely know, that's the weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not throwing out the criticism of the one that I don't know, but I'm adding weight to those that are around me, know me, have seen it day in and day out. That's right, there's more weight to that criticism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's more wisdom in the criticism given, because they know a lot about you. They know to measure what they're criticizing with your ministry as a whole, not just one sermon, any other things. Any questions, comments, concerns or criticisms on this podcast? Kara?
Speaker 3:Honestly, I'm kidding, I don't have any.
Speaker 2:She was going to be very critical right there. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I almost did.
Speaker 1:About what we're wearing today.
Speaker 3:It only would have been frustrating and unhelpful criticism, so I just keep those in my brain. You can keep that to yourself. Yeah, all right. Well, hey, thanks for those in my brain.
Speaker 1:You can keep that to yourself yeah, all right. Well, hey, thanks for listening in. We hope the podcast today was helpful and if it wasn't, come critique us. Right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Send a critique.
Speaker 1:That's right. Music's going to play eventually. There we go. Should I do the bye?
Speaker 2:Have a.
