6 Ways To Handle Criticism As A Pastor In A Small Church

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It’s almost noon on Sunday.

You’ve set up, welcomed, served, and cleaned up. You’re on your way to the car where your family is waiting when that parishioner approaches you with a long list of “suggestions” for how to do better in your role.

Or maybe you’re at home one evening, preparing to host a midweek Bible study when the doorbell rings and you find a certain church member showing up early to tell you what’s wrong with your spouse’s teaching style.

Or perhaps you’re at the annual meeting when a fellow leader makes a snide comment about your ministry’s budget in front of everyone, or a volunteer pulls you aside at the grocery store with some big feelings about your role in a recent church change.

Criticism in ministry can come from anywhere and from anyone, and in some seasons, it can seem like it comes nonstop from every direction.

Leaders function as lightning rods for congregational tension, especially during times when change is afoot.

Whether disapproving feedback points to minor differences or giant ruptures, receiving other people’s negative experiences in our ministries can feel like a lot to handle, especially when we’re caught off guard.

What should we do when the people we’ve committed to love and lead seem so ready to criticize?

Rather than plastering on a fake smile, lashing out in reactivity, or retreating in resentment, learning how to deal well with criticism as a pastor or ministry leader in a small church is a big part of our calling to love and lead like Christ.

Criticism is one of the most powerful (and sometimes painful) discipleship classrooms, not only for those we lead, but also for us as well.

How we respond when we’re confronted with criticism is a better indicator of our spiritual life than how many verses we have memorized or how many hours we spend in prayer.

The crucible of criticism in ministry reveals how thoroughly we’ve allowed the Holy Spirit to transform our anxiety into peace and our desire for control into love.

If you’ve ever wanted a playbook for handling criticism, this guide can serve as a practical, Biblical framework for navigating the emotional and spiritual fallout of critical feedback in a way that keeps our well-being intact and shifts our energy from simply surviving criticism to seeing it as an invitation to greater integrity in our ministries and in ourselves.

6 Ways To Handle Criticism As A Pastor In Your Church

1. Attune And Attend

Jesus modeled deep awareness and attunement for his own physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

While we rightfully point to the extreme sacrifices he made as evidence of his love for humankind, in order to sustain 3 years of life and ministry on the road teaching and healing huge crowds, Jesus also took naps, ate dinner with friends, and got away by himself for extended times of prayer.

How are you attending to your real, human needs?

One of the most important ways to set ourselves up to handle criticism well is to stop living as though chronically ignoring our bodies, hearts, and spirits is God’s plan for fruitful ministry.

Not only does responding well to criticism come more easily when we are aware of and honor our own needs with proactive, healthful lifestyle choices, but being in the habit of attuning to our own internal experiences becomes key in the midst of receiving criticism because of the space it makes for us to choose how we want to respond.

When we can tune into how we are feeling as we’re being critiqued, we effectively expand the space between stimulus and response, turning it into an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak and guide.

When we engage criticism without attending to ourselves, we can end up making assumptions and getting defensive, shutting down the parts of our God-given brain that make creativity and compassion possible.

The difference between responding thoughtfully and reacting impulsively comes down to keeping that part of our brain online. And that takes practice, which means it doesn’t start when we’re confronted with conflict; it starts long before, when the stakes aren’t as high.

Spiritual disciplines that slow us down (prayer, silence, Sabbath, solitude, etc.) help give us increased opportunities to attune to our own internal realities.

We can start this practice of attuning and attending to ourselves in any relationship or situation.

Noticing yourself getting annoyed while in line at the BMV? What does annoyance feel like in your body? What are you thinking that is driving the annoyance? Might there be a need you can attend to that would create more opportunity for peace?

Practicing attention with curiosity in benign situations helps prime the pumps for doing so when our nervous systems are on high alert.

When we become the watcher of our thoughts and feelings, we restore our own agency by reminding ourselves that we are not at their mercy.

We can, as we learn in Ephesians 4:27, feel an emotion (like anger) without allowing it to drive us to sin.

• What internal experience are you having right now?
• What spiritual discipline most helps you attune to your inner reality?

2. Get Curious

Jesus asked incredibly thoughtful questions. “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51) and “Why are your hearts troubled?” (Luke 24:38) and “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6) are just a few examples.

Jesus’ genuine interest in others was likely one of the qualities that made his presence so magnetic.

When someone we serve in ministry confronts us with critical feedback, it can be easy for our attention to be drawn to the content they are sharing and whether we agree or disagree with it.

While the content of their critique is important (maybe the song choice or ministry direction really is problematic for some reason), if we can stay present to the person who is sharing the critique and begin with curiosity about their experience, we might arrive at a deeper understanding than if we focus on the content alone.

Curiosity creates a deeper connection as it communicates interest, facilitates empathy, and allows the person sharing to be more fully seen and heard, which improves the chances of a mutually generous exchange.

There’s a real person with real needs and real hurts behind the criticism.

• What has it been like for them to be in your care?
• How do you want to show up to them in this moment and in the future?

3. Follow The Father

Jesus was never in a hurry and frequently worked on a different timeline than those who spent time in his company.

This sometimes frustrated his disciples and friends as life got messy in the interim (see the death of Lazarus in John 11 and the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Luke 8 for just two examples).

How did Jesus know when to stay silent or speak up and what to say when he did? What quality allowed him to live at a different pace than that set by others’ expectations and demands?

We read in John 5:19 that Jesus only did what he “[saw] the Father doing.” This is a remarkable window into Jesus’ ministry as it shows us that his primary attention was on God’s activity around and in him.

This is powerful, first, because it allows us to hope in God even in the midst of struggle. The Father is at work already – in the heated conflict, in the difficult relationship, in the challenging circumstances that we wish were different.

Second, it reframes ministry as the process of noticing the work that the Father is doing and then joining him there.

This kind of confidence and obedience led Jesus to answer some accusations with pointed questions (Matt. 21:23-27), others with explanations (Luke 5:34-35), and still others with silence (John 19:9).

• How could looking for God at work not only change the experience of receiving criticism but also guide the content and timing of your response?

4. Unity Not Uniformity

While it can be tempting to romanticize the beginnings of the early church as idyllic and friction-free, the Scriptural account of our faith family’s origins shows plenty of conflict and criticism both from within and without (see Acts 5-6, 13-15).

Seeing criticism as a normal part of every ministry journey helps to reorient our perspective and reminds us that different experiences and ideas are actually baked into the divine design of how the church is created to function (I Cor. 12).

When we believe that differing ideas and interpretations can be an asset, not a liability, for a unified church, we allow for disagreement and critical feedback without perceiving it as a threat, and that enables the Holy Spirit to use our differences to engage with, instead of repel, one another.

Disagreement doesn’t need to mean division, just like harmony doesn’t need to mean homogeneity.

Partnering with other leaders, faith communities, and spiritual guides outside of our family of faith also strengthens this muscle because it multiplies the surface area available for engagement across differences and keeps us in a posture of learning and growth.

• What common, collaborative goal in your ministry is only possible when criticism is allowed and differences valued?

5. Responsibility And Repair

Sometimes the criticism that gets brought to ministry leadership is the result of a simple misunderstanding or mistake. Other times, there are complex theological or philosophical differences at play. Still other times, our own insecurities, blind spots, or wounds have created ruptures in need of repair.

In all of these scenarios, healing starts by naming what is true and taking responsibility for our part.

This is not only the case for the facts of the situation (e.g., “I communicated that change without checking with you first, as I should have”) but also with the feelings involved (“and that felt hurtful to you; I’m embarrassed that I missed that step and sad it caused you pain”).

One of the most difficult experiences in small church ministry is when we have our eyes opened to the harm we have done. How we respond in those situations can either begin the process of restoration or deepen the rupture.

Apologizing for our role in the harm experienced should always come before apologetics in the work of repair.

Sometimes, however, the critical feedback we receive is without genuine merit or is communicated in a way that creates further harm. In those instances, telling the truth and taking responsibility can involve communicating boundaries regarding acceptable forms of communication and refusing to get drawn into a fight.

Ministry, by its nature, agitates unhealed places; when criticism gets ugly, it’s important that we remember what is in our influence (how we behave) and what is outside of it (nearly everything else).

Jesus gave an injunction to his followers to be humble rather than hypocritical about their own issues, but also followed that command with instructions to be discerning about what an audience is able to handle (Matt. 7:1-6). Utilizing the structures of accountability Jesus prescribed is important to steward and safeguard all involved (Matt 18:15-20).

• Where might your critics be right?
• What freedom could come from apologizing or from being willing to say or hear something that challenges your views?

6. Expect Difficulty With Hope

Jesus is up front with his disciples that they will have trouble in this world (John 16:33). And yet sometimes we still get surprised by the experience of trouble in the church.

When we expect the family of faith to be a place free of discouragement, displeasure, and dysfunction, we only set ourselves up to be disappointed because we’re putting our hope in the wrong thing.

Criticism in church, especially from those who are close to us, can be really difficult to navigate and painful to process, but it doesn’t need to be a surprise.

What if we saw our role as pastors and leaders in a small church as the privilege of getting to be the ones who go first, practicing staying calm and connected to God in the midst of chaos, and working on emotional regulation when our nervous systems get activated?

What if the biggest challenges of criticism in ministry circles are really the places where our trust in Jesus gets confirmed, his leadership of our church gets reaffirmed, and our messy collective humanity gets to serve as a cracked vessel for his glory, power, and love to shine through?

Trouble is a little less terrible when it is experienced alongside the peaceful presence of Jesus, who has already overcome it and is, pierced hand outstretched, willing and eager to show us the way.

• What upcoming event or ministry season is on your church calendar, and how could anticipating some criticism about it help you handle it with hope when it comes?

Your Growth As A Shepherd

Small church ministry brings us into contact with people who criticize our work and sometimes even our personhood. And because of the tight quarters of small church spaces and relationships, criticism can seem ever-present and feel impossible to avoid.

Jesus lived these dynamics in his earthly context, as has the church from the first century right up to today; we are certainly not alone in facing this challenge.

The strategies outlined above provide helpful light on the path, but they also rely on the foundation of a deeply connected, regenerative relationship with Jesus, our shepherd, who loves us into loving by tending to our needs, and with others who can pastor us as we serve.

Spiritual practices that help us sustain connection to the Trinity and attend to our internal landscape become vital ways to remain grounded in the face of critical feedback.

Learning how to handle criticism with a sturdy, non-anxious presence (including how to repair when we fall short) is an essential part of how we grow in integrity and integration as shepherds of the flocks God has given us and how we represent him well to the individuals and communities we have committed to love and lead.

Read More:

Why A Soft Heart Is Your Greatest Leadership Strength

Setting Boundaries Without Losing Christ-like Grace

How To Disagree About Church Change Without Division