My very first college major was “Business Management.” I had this pipe dream of one day owning and managing my own publishing company and I figured I would need some business savvy to pursue it. I only took one year of business classes, which I enjoyed very much. The next year God had different plans and I changed my major to pastoral ministries.
Then, as fate would have it, I married a brilliant and beautiful business management major who now works in economic development. My repentance from the idolatry of business was quickly undone! Be that as it may, I have actually read more books from the business world than she has, especially lately. The reason for that irony is that there is still an expectation that pastors be half-CEO’s who are knowledgeable of modern movements in the corporate world and can employ them in churches.
Several pastors agree that one of the best modern movements is towards a culture of “genuine feedback.” This culture creates and maintains the expectation that every person in an organization should be evaluated consistently and sometimes constantly. Every executive is expected to evaluate their employees and be evaluated by them. In turn, every employee is to be evaluated by their peers and their executive. The hope of all this critiquing and judging is that meaningful conversation can occur about strengths and weaknesses and relationships in the organization. But, ironically, one recent book I read claimed the honest conversations never happened. (see “Leadership Divided” by Robert Carucci).
Churches adopted similar strategies. We just used higher sounding terminology to justify it. Instead of “evaluation” we call it “spiritual accountability.” Instead of “suggestions of improvement” we talk about “opportunities for repentance.” We couch the whole thing in a “God who expects us to change.” Don’t let the spiritual words fool you. In practice it looks the same. Everybody should have feedback conversations with everybody else. We create forms and surveys that everybody can fill out about each other. We are expected to “evaluate” our ministries, our pastors, our board, our lay leaders. Over time everything about the church becomes fair game for human criticism. We show up to church with our mental scorecards prepared and we check boxes and circle numbers in our heads, waiting for the moment to share the results with others.
Don’t get me wrong, the feedback culture sounds really good on paper. For example, consider the scores of “isolated” leaders whose moral and executive failures were the result of an absence of “truth tellers” surrounding them. They are in the church with just as much frequency as in the business world and they all prove to us that un-evaluated leaders become spectacular failures. I do believe that one of the ways to “help” them is to criticize them. That means that one of the ways to help me is to criticize me. Receiving feedback is a means of grace. It enables humility and forces us to “not consider ourselves more highly than we ought.” In fact, I love the Apostle Paul’s words that “when we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted we endure it. When we are slandered, we answer kindly.” (1 Cor. 4:12-13) It would seem even receiving harsh or unfair criticism is an opportunity for spiritual growth.
But still I worry for the spiritual health of the critics. After all with the expectation that I will be evaluated comes the opposite expectation that I have the power and authority to judge others. Under this expectation, insulting, slandering and persecuting others becomes my “right.” All ready we are seeing scores of people in the business world and the church world abusing that power. I hate to say it but I am sometimes one of the chief abusers.
Coworkers have used peer to peer evaluations to settle personal vendettas. More disturbingly, managers have too. And that happens in the church world too. When the District Superintendant comes to town some parishioners use it as their opportunity to “fill them in” on just how great or lousy this pastor is. Humorously one parishioner once tried to use the DS visit as an opportunity to complain about my wife. It did not go well for them but the very fact they felt obligated to “express concerns” to the DS about her shows how out of hand the feedback culture can get.
The feedback culture has a very deep problem of god-making. Because of the feedback culture we now believe that not only can we evaluate but we get to choose the criteria by which you are evaluated. This produces feedback that is not rooted in any sort of ethic other than the critic’s own selfishness. It is the complaints of bathroom use or bad hand writing or ridiculous email etiquette producing lines in the comment section like, “didn’t put toilet paper on roll the right way” or “can’t tell if her I’s are actually P’s” or “You should always put your phone number in every email you send” or “doesn’t text me back soon enough.”
In the church these comments take a slightly different form. Parishioners feel very qualified to say that the pastor’s tie was not tied right (too long, even touched the belt buckle, gasp!) or that the lettuce at a potluck wasn’t chopped correctly or that the lighting in the sanctuary was too dark or the paint colors not welcoming. They do not realize that Scripture says nothing about sanctuary lighting or chopping lettuce and ties weren’t even invented yet. But they don’t care because the feedback culture has made them the gods and their made up evaluation form are the new sacred scriptures.
In their thinking the pastor or interior decorator or lettuce chopper is entitled to hear their opinion. This attitude reveals a very disturbing inner life that has been malformed and misshaped by our “expectation” of feedback.
With that in mind the feedback culture also runs counter to one of our deeply held Christian values, “do not judge or you too will be judged.” (Matt. 7:1) By applauding the culture of feedback we are giving into the myth that you are the consumer god who deserves to be appeased and to give “honest feedback” when you are not. But in the real kingdom of God we are not gods. We are grateful servants who live lives of gratitude, even foolish gratitude. This gratitude gives thanks for your pastor even when their tie looks absurd. It thanks God for the lettuce that was chopped all screwy. And it enters the sanctuary doors with thanksgiving even if it is “too dark.”
I wonder if rediscovering a culture of gratitude might offer a powerful counter to the god-making culture of feedback. I wonder if our culture of thank you might be a powerful witness to the poor employees who are stuck under the oppression of constant evaluation. I wonder if our poorly lit and painted sanctuary with absurd pastors and weird lettuce could be safe places for those who need a rest from constant evaluation.
As an experiment I’ll take the first step into that world by saying thank you for reading this today. Every click I get is a wonderful gift from God and I do believe that.
And if you want, you can leave your evaluation in the comments below. Just know that I will be blessed when you do, but that you will be cursed 😛
Go-Before Grace 