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How do you go about bringing
change in your organization or church? There are three ways to facilitate change. The first way is to destabilize the status
quo. The second is to create reasons for
change to occur, and the third is to restabilize at a new level of effectiveness. These may seem simple, but we must take them
slowly and carefully. Put people in
front of programs. Whenever you
destabilize something, people will need something to hang onto, because that
which they always have hung to is being taken away from them. That’s why you need to create reasons for
change to occur. Give them something to
hang onto and then restabilize. This can
be done on a small scale basis or large projects and if you are successful at
it, people will trust you and change will come much easier.
Unfortunately there is an
overabundance of criticism and problem people in the church. The Bible so frequently tells us to encourage
one another and strengthen one another and build one another up. We find that we do just the opposite by
criticism, slanderous remarks and simply bringing others down that we might
look better. Some typical potshots that
are taken at the preacher can include, “I’m not being fed.” What they are really saying is, “I don’t like
your style.” Another criticism is, “Your
sermons don’t have depth. They’re not
meeting my needs.” Another is, “I tried
to call you on your day off, Pastor.” They begin to think that the pastor must be playing golf because pastors
only work one day a week. Someone may
say, “I’ve come to share a personal concern.” What they really are saying is, “I want to tell you what you’re doing
wrong.” They may tell you, “I want you
to know the real situation.” They might
say, “You’re not reaching people like you used to.” One that is heartbreaking is, “Setting goals
is too much like the world.” Another
is, “Why reach out for more people when we’re not doing a good job with those
we have.” They may say, you tell too
many stories, we want to hear the word. Another one that can raise your eyebrows
is, “We need to pray for our pastor. He
needs help, you know. He’s got big
problems.”
The list of criticisms go on
and on and cause pain and division in the church. The whole point here is that the church has an overabundance of criticism,
we criticize over everything. Instead of
entering in to the worship service to worship God, we have to critique it, and
we criticize it. Criticism is difficult
to take because it is seen as a personal attack. The term constructive criticism does nothing
to build up, because it is criticism. Much more can be attained through encouragement and that is what the
Bible talks about.
myths that we often fall prey to. One
is, if I work harder the criticism will go away. When this criticism is given, most pastors
will start to put more work and effort into the area that they were criticized
about. The only problem is that same
person who criticized will come back the next year and criticize you again in
the same area you sought to improve upon. With criticism, working harder does nothing to alleviates the
criticism. The second criticism myth is
that if I receive criticism I must be a failure. That is absolutely untrue. As a pastor you cannot please all the people
at the same time, so you must seek to please God and live before Him. There will always be some people you cannot
please. Criticism is often an
individuals method of dealing with the stress and dissatisfaction in their own
life. When criticism comes your way in
conflict, don’t fall into the myths thinking that the criticism will go away.
criticism that we need to examine. One
cause of criticism is misplaced anger. Someone is upset about something
and they are angry. So, instead of
taking it out or dealing with it in a healthy way, they take it out on
you. Often times, personal problems
in life situations or with relationships
can be a cause of misdirected criticism and it causes individuals to become
hostile. There could be a correlation
between their hostile fault finding and how they are experiencing life. It could be a self esteem problem. Because they don’t feel good about
themselves, the only way they know how to lift themselves up is to bring you
down. Some individuals yearn for
control. They want to be a big fish in alittle pond. Instead of earning control or
gaining it through legitimate means, they will use criticism. Sometimes criticism happens because there are spiritually
immature Christians in the church.
family then you have babies, toddlers, elementary, junior high, senior high,
mid-life and senior levels of individuals. Chronological age has nothing to do with it, we are talking about spiritual
maturity. Criticism often comes from the
lips of those who are immature spiritually.