Humility & Anxiety in Christian Service

Anonymous surveys protect the Pastor from bitterness against somebody who was simply being honest about their concerns. I just think it’s bad to get the Pastor directly involved in this. Of course, people are free to come talk to the Pastor about anything, whenever they wish. That should be encouraged.

But, for the purposes of a formal program where you encourage and solicit feedback, it should be anonymous.

It sounds like you have a good plan in place. I never got to the point where I was able to develop a Biblical infrastructure at my church. I was on the way, but the more pieces which began to fall into place, the more the train began to run off the rails. I pray your efforts along this line will help your church and your Pastor(s). Let us know how it goes!

[Dan Miller]

Great comments. I’m hoping that we can have a discussion of what proper feedback should look like.

Who should be asked? everyone? deacons/elders? trusted lay people? (who decides which are trusted?)

What should be asked? If we ask certain questions and not others, what does that teach about what our people should be seeking in leadership?

When I listen to myself in a Sunday School lesson I’ve recorded, I say, “So” and “right?” an unbelievable number of times. I’m a terrible public speaker.

What sort of ministry activity should be “rejoiced over”? Are we talking about preaching? Small group leadership? Ministry leadership? Counseling (personal,marriage,etc)?

These are great questions. I also like your hybrid approach. There would definitely be tradeoffs involved in anonymous vs. not anonymous vs. hybrid. Maybe there is room to do it more than one way… a very specific anonymous survey could be useful.

As for your questions, really needs some thought. It seems clear that the criteria laid down in the pastoral epistles should be the basis for the lion’s share of criteria… and what should be rejoiced over. But that wouldn’t be exhaustive, especially if you’re talking about including the various ministries of the church.

There’s a nexus where it stops being an evaluation of a pastor/elder’s ministry and begins being an evaluation of the church as a whole and then of the congregation… more of a “we” thing than a “he” thing.

But as for the rejoicing over part, I’m convinced it has to be task oriented not outcome oriented. So it should involve looking at what the ministry of the word is supposed to be like and condensing some criteria from that. Then looking at the “people ministry” as we see it in the pastorals and the apostolic example as well.

I suspect “rejoicing with” ministry leaders, like anything else, is an acquired skill: that is, there is discipline involved in learning what one ought to rejoice about. What we all tend to do is just go with how we feel about things and not ask “how should I feel”? So there’s an element of proper affections required of those who would do this sort of evaluating. In some ways I think Paul might be telling them what they ought to find “rejoicing worthy” more than he is looking for assurance that what he is doing is worthy of rejoicing. He is not usually in doubt about that. Where he thinks his work might be ‘in vain” is when people are not responding as they should. In which case, it’s not vain at all in the ultimate sense (of God’s glory) but is vain in the sense of unfruitful for the individuals involved.

So there are really two very different concepts of “vain” and “anxiety” here. One is “I’m concerned that I’m not doing what I should be doing” the other is “I’m concerned that you are not doing what you should be doing in response.” I really think that what Paul has to say is mostly about the latter, not the former.

Fatigue has me wondering all over this topic, but hopefully there’s something helpful in there… and somewhat clear.

It’s true that Paul links his thoughts on laboring in vain to an assessment on “the day of Christ” and the like. What’s needed here, I think, is a more comprehensive study of how Paul evaluated his own ministry. There is much on in this in the epistles. For now, I suggest that his reference being able to rejoice proudly (we don’t quite have an English equiv. for the phrase) is still a reference to a different kind of vanity. Not a lack of satisfying God or bringing Him glory, but a lack of fruit to show for it—which does take some of the thrill out of it.

Consider an OT example for some context. Jeremiah is absolutely faithful as far as we can tell, but he, like many of the prophets, sees little if any positive response. What is required of stewards is that they be faithful, not that they get results. But what would Paul say about Jeremiah’s ministry as far as “laboring in vain” goes? I think he’d say that in his relationship with his hearers, Jeremiah labored in vain—his harvest basket is empty (kenosis). But Jeremiah ran the race, fought the good fight, finished his course. And has his reward. He was not vain in relation to God, only in relation to man.

The latter matters to us, because (a) we’re human, and (b) the nature of the work is such that it’s impossible to do it right without caring about that. So Paul expresses a genuine and appropriate desire that people respond as they should and this bring joy to him in is work and at the day of Christ.

I’m pretty confident he is not saying he us unsure he’s doing his work right and that God’s glory is at stake. He certainly doesn’t seem to be in any doubt about that in 2 Tim. 4:7.

… However, that line of reasoning can also be used to excuse poor performance. Criticism? Just play the “do what’s right - not what brings results” card and poof - no more criticism. It’s like communication - if the hearer doesn’t understand, is that his fault or the speakers’s fault?

Poor performance cannot be excused if it’s evaluated rigorously by the “what pastors/elders/ministers are supposed to do” standard. It’s not like we have to choose between “evaluation by results” and “no evaluation at all.”

Pastoral epistles give us plenty to work with… and results are not among the standards.

I think your main argument still works either way, because, whether Paul is talking about empty labor in relation to God or empty labor in relation to others’ response, he clearly calls those under his ministry to make his ministry one of mutual rejoicing rather than empty.

Where the distinction I’ve been suggesting comes into play is mostly on how evaluation and feedback are shaped and delivered. “Third party” (as in not God Himself and not the ministry leader) feedback has an important role both in the question of “Is he doing what he’s supposed to be doing?” and in the questions of “is it as effective as it could be?”

But I think the distinction helps frame the feedback process… and maybe “weight” the feedback. We know there are lots of ministry implementation details that aren’t “holy writ” and can be more or less effective in different settings, for different individuals, etc. That sort of feedback is subjective but far from useless!

Like your feedback categories… they could be packaged several different ways and still be essentially the same three. How about “remedial, advisory, and rubbish” ;-)

One thing that comes to mind is that there are some sorts of feedback that a pastor ought to be able to see. If one preaches, say, on gluttony, we might expect to see people cheerfully eating salads instead of fried chicken at the next potluck. If one preaches on contentment and fiscal stewardship, one might expect to see more older cars in the lot and fewer new car buys—at least in the short term.

Or if one preaches on the Trinity or other doctrines, one might expect some questions and comments about the impact and meaning of it. What some are discussing here is the basic way an employer gets feedback, and that’s fine as far as it goes, but I’m not quite sure that this is how it ought to be done given the sheer familiarity shown by the New Testament—Luther rightly chose the informal “du” over the formal “Sie” when translating the New Testament, no?

I admit as well—as I can hear it almost in my ears—that getting this kind of feedback is tough, so I understand the perceived need to formalize things and all that. But that said, one of my favorite memories of a former job in a small electronics factory was to sit down with a worker who had (or whose friend had) made some faulty product and run through work instructions, difficulties and the like. After I made clear that the goal was not to blame them, but rather to make it possible to do their jobs right, they would cheerfully walk through the instructions, the difficulties, and the like—more or less doing my job for me—and then we’d also end up discussing personal things. No prompting from me, but they’d talk about relationships, ask about my kids, the whole nine yards.

Hey, if a quality engineer can learn that by sitting down to discuss a build instruction, I’d argue that a pastor ought to see that kind of thing as his goal in the pastorate, no? In the meantime, certainly ask things about sermon delivery, frequency and effectiveness of visitation, and the like, but at a certain point I’d hope a person would get a good hint from what they observed.

Had a fun time last night asking my pastor how his grandson is doing—evidently had some surgery to correct a malady of the ear of some kind—and while I was rather lightheartedly trying to make fun of myself as not remembering exactly what the malady was (somehow I got it right), he was impressed that I’d remembered that.

My take is that the current state appears to be one in which pastors aren’t really sure whether people are listening to their sermons. Sound fair, y’all? And then we would infer that our goal state—our “entitlemen” as we say in quality engineering—is one where people routinely discuss these details freely (sometimes disagreeing on nonessentials) and cheerfully.

it’s worth noting that I’ve at least been told that the Pilgrims would spend their Sunday afternoons at church discussing how they would apply the sermon. OK, we’re not likely to get that much time out of people anytime soon, but we might think of what we can do to facilitate this kind of thing. Maybe more potlucks? We’re Baptists after all. :^)

And maybe step one is to invite a few people to give some blunt feedback about how things are going. The sermon is probably the easiest place to start, and you could ask questions about the theology (does it match the Solas and Fundamentals?), the presentation (any distracting vocal or body language?), and the non-Biblical examples (are we citing things that are rejected by Snopes and such?).

For personal ministry, you could ask whether people talk to the pastor when he doesn’t need something from them, whether he’s gracious in counsel and church discipline, and the like.

Once again, love the topic and I think there’s a tremendous, YUGE, potential for growth in the church here. Blessings.