All posts in Dealing With Criticism
What To Do With Black History Month
It’s easy to make Black History month a time where we get creative with our latest black jokes because if we were to really take it seriously, there might actually be some tension. We like to stay away from sticky topics because we don’t like offending people, but I think there’s tremendous value in really taking a few moments to research what some of the Black History is.
When you look at the strides that we’ve taken in our country to give black people an opportunity to do anything any people can do, it really is remarkable. I had the opportunity to see pre screenings of a couple of movies that addressed the tension involved in Black History: DJango Unchained and 42 (movie about major league’s first ball player, Jackie Robinson.) They really made me realize how truly privileged I am in today’s society, but I think there’s a lot of work to still be done.
When I look at Black History, I don’t see black and white. I see division. And even though a lot of racial issues are in our rearview, division amongst churches could be at an all-time high. And I believe if we can dive into what allowed people of all colors to come together to even the playing field for everyone, I wonder what strategies we could pull from to blur some denominational lines to make a bigger impact for the kingdom of God.
That’s what I’m doing with Black History Month. What about you?
You Never Know
Mary Gillerstad. Unless you’re attending the Passion Conference 2013, I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard of Mary Gillerstad. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right. But her most recognizable earthly assignment was simply being the youth director of Andy Stanley and Louie Giglio in the 70′s at First Baptist Atlanta long before youth pastors were a staple staff position in a church.
Andy and Louie (pictured left) have been good friends since middle school, and I just have to imagine what it must have been like for Mary Gillerstad. As 60,000 college students pack the Georgia Dome to worship the God of the universe for 3 days (led by Louie Giglio) and as 25,000 people come through North Point’s campuses every weekend (led by Andy Stanley), one must conclude that you simply never know who you’re pouring into. It had to have been rewarding for Louie and Andy to bring Mary on stage last night to simply honor her. Louie said, “She always believed in us.” What a simple statement that is perhaps token and tossed around as if it weren’t often true, but when it is true, I guess you just never know what can happen.
I hope I can be like Mary Gillerstad. I hope that when people share their dreams and visions with me, that I’d be a person that believes the best for people. They already have enough haters to do all the other stuff.
What do you think?
So You Wanna Be a Professional Christian?
When I took an inventory of who I spend most of my time with, I found that the majority of list included professional Christians. I have wonderful people in my life who love and encourage me. I’m grateful for them. But I reached a boiling point where my honest internal goals in life were to gain more influence in Christian circles rather than ones outside the church. I’d tell you I want to influence people outside the church for Jesus, but my actions would say otherwise. Some of it is culture. You read an awesome book. You want to write an awesome book. You hear a speaker you like at a conference. You want to speak at conferences. It’s hard NOT to want to be popular amongst other Christians.
With this internal battle, I decided to drastically change who I spent most of my time with and started spending about 3 hours a day playing ball with mostly guys who aren’t pro Christians. They’re actually semi-pro and pro basketball players. And to be honest, I could assume most of them are far from the Lord, but who really knows?! Regardless of where some may believe they are on the spiritual ladder of success, I simply go to the gym everyday and I’m normal me. After a couple of weeks of going and building relationships with guys, one new friend gave me the greatest compliment I’ve ever received. He said, “Ryan, I’ve watched you over the past couple of weeks, and I see Jesus in you.”
This is a guy who’s never read one of my blogs or heard me speak. He has no idea what I do with churches or anything ministry related. I don’t know what made him compliment me like that, but it challenged my heart at the deepest level. It’s like I want to be complimented on talents and gifts. We want to be retweeted and @mentioned. It’s as if the compliments and accolades our mentors [close and afar] receive from their “fans” have become the goal, but ladies and gentlemen, I believe the only compliment we should strive for is for someone to say to us: “I see Jesus in you.” What other accomplishment is there? What else is so important? I wish I could say I could care less about my future in ministry and what other Christians think about me and it, but that’s simply not true. But I can say this, I’m getting there.
“It’s not the healthy that need the doctor.” -JC
Pointing The Finger
Whether you are near or far from your deepest aspiration, you have one. Maybe you want to be a great writer, an awesome singer, a sharp entrepreneur, a phenomenal artist, or a jaw-dropping speaker. But whatever it is, regardless of where we’ve landed on our journey with it, there is an eager desire inside of us to be good at our trade. But isn’t sometimes hard for us to vocalize what we’re good at? It’s almost as if we’re stuck at aspiration. It’s like we simply want to be good, but who are the said judges of what’s legit and what’s not?!
If I’m honest, I think we’re all waiting. Before we find it okay to feel legit about what we aspire to do, we’re waiting for someone else to point us out. You’re not at a place where you feel comfortable broadcasting yourself to the world as an author. But you want to. You don’t feel ready to share your business idea quite yet. You need a seasoned businessman to tell you it’s a good idea before you launch. We’re waiting for someone else to point us out. The good news is this: you should!
John 1.26 I baptize withwater,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie… 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
I heard @bishopjakes speak on this passage where he highlighted this scripture. He made one statement I’ll never forget: “If Jesus needed someone to point Him out, what makes you think that you so talented that you don’t need nobody?! Touch 3 people and say… Somebody gettin ready to point you out!” =) I love that in v. 26, Jesus was just a person among the crowd. At this point, John was the man! He was the established speaker with disciples getting all the gigs and attention. And so here’s the deal; someone could be getting ready to point you out, but honestly, they easily could NOT point you out.
But in the mean time, while you wait on God knows what, I have a mere suggestion: YOU point someone else out! Somebody is in your crowd right now that is unnoticed. JESUS CHRIST WAS! Business people, what other business can you help promote? Authors, who’s somebody that you may not think is an equal writer to yourself? Point them out anyway. We’ve all been given a sphere of influence. So use that influence and point the finger! You may feel like you’ve been doing this and you’re wondering when your time will be. Who knows? And who cares?! Don’t grow weary. Contrary to what the devil will make you believe, Jesus knows FULL well what He’s doing with your life. Here’s two questions you can walk away with to help:
1.) Who’s in my crowd today that I can point out? [Even if they already get pointed out all the time. Don't fall into the trap of being a hater.]
2.) Today, how can I point to Jesus more?
Now touch 3 people and say, “Point the Finger.”
You Better Recognize
It’s setting up the tables. Putting up the lights. Practicing your instrument for hours. Decorating the foyer. Scripting, shooting, and editing the video. Meeting for 5 hours to get the idea just right. And oh, when you get that perfect idea, it was as if a light bulb went off in your head, and you had the magical ability to do the same in other people’s minds when you told them about it. The response is pretty standard: “That’s a great idea.” And here’s what I observed, the average encouragement statement in our culture last about one sentence.
In the last 30 Days you’ve probably heard these words: Great job. Good stuff, man. Looks beautiful. Nice shirt. Cute dress. Thanks, bro. If you want to be an effective leader, you gotta start with recognizing what people do around you. It means the world to people. It sucks to work 20 hours on a video and have someone walk by and say, “Cool video, dude.” Is that bad? No! But if I take the cape off for a second, my response to that is sometimes, “Cool video, dude? That’s it? Do you know how much time I put into making that video? Do you realize how I was able to get that angle hanging out of my car and driving at the same time? ” I think we all have a desire to really be recognized. Ladies, maybe the added unorthodox belt with the dress plus unique earrings was genius, but you got a, “Nice outfit”. Real encouragement is in the details.
Here’s 3 things you can do to really encourage people:
1.) Ask Questions – “How long did it take you to do that?”, will take you further than, “Nice work.” Precede the latter with the first and that’s the difference between a person feeling normal and a person feeling special. Asking questions also helps you understand people’s craft. I have no idea how hard it is to run a sound board, but it looks easy. And I’m sure I’m wrong about that.
2.) Be Specific – “Worship was awesome today.” Chances are, your worship pastor/leader has heard that once or twice in their life. During worship, look for a specific moment where you felt like you were actually lead and describe that to them. One time I was a part of worship service and thought, “The Holy Spirit is so attracted to this room when this guy leads.” I shared it with him, and he said, “Wow. No one has ever said that to me before.” Specific recognition sticks with people.
3.) Make It Actionable – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a really great, specific thought about somebody, and I forgot to tell them. If it’s in a service, write it down fast to remind yourself to tell that person. The biggest mistake you can make in recognition, is assuming somebody else is doing it. I was just with one of my best friend’s in the world at a wedding, and it sounds stupid, but an encouraging thought about him came to me while I was on the plane leaving, and I pulled out my to-do list and wrote, “Encourage ______ about how he handled conflict on Friday”, because I didn’t want to forget!
Relationships are important. Leadership is important. If you want to do both well, you’ve got to look around and see who’s doing what. Today, you’ve got the power to make someone’s day average… or extraordinary. Go.
The Cure for the Common People Pleaser
If there’s one neutral word that I’d use to describe myself that is neither arrogant nor selling myself short, it’s: diplomatic. I just want things to be ok. I always look for the happy medium in any situation. And living this way can lead to an addiction to constantly please people.
I find it interesting that I know plenty of people who, internally, freak out when ONE person is mad at them, but remain internally calloused to the secret sin that haunts them daily. Contrary to the popular misconception about people pleasers, pleasing people is not a bad thing! People will accidentally be happy with you without any effort on your part. But if pleasing people is your goal, there’s no way that you spend the same amount of time in your thought life trying to please God. I’m not after your actions. This one’s about what’s going on in your head. Anybody could give what it LOOKS like not to be a people pleaser, but people pleasing is an issue of the heart and the mind.
Here’s a few things that I think can help:
1.) Make pleasing God your first priority with what you set on your heart and what you put in your head.
2.) Get over yourself. To get over pleasing people, you gots to get over you. Once you fall out of love with being everybody’s superman, you’ll find a new role in their life that does #3.
3.) Point people to Jesus. The more you do this, the less you’ll feel obligated to always keep the cape on.
What do you think?
Dealing With Your Paparazzi
Whether it’s the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the opportunity you capitalized on, or the amount of money you make, people will always find a way to HATE ON YOU. We could discuss the symptoms for you to diagnose yourself to find out if, indeed, you are a hater, but usually, if you’re a hater, you probably already know it. In case you don’t, I’ll give you a hint: if you can always find the one negative thing about a really great person, or a really great thing, or idea… you is a hater!
Moving on, I don’t want to focus on the haters. I want to focus on the hatee, the person being hated on. Because if you’re not careful, you will respond to hating… with hating. Has someone ever called out a flaw in your life and all of a sudden, you’re guns blazing ready to point out every flaw they have? Hatorade is like a venom that can poison an innocent tongue that is meant to build people up, not a means to even out our social lives to somehow keep everyone at the same level. We wouldn’t want someone thinking they’re all high and mighty. And we don’t want anyone depressed. So we’ll encourage the depressed. And throw jabs at the high and mighty to “keep them humble.” Dumb. I like to call haters, “The Paparazzi.” They’ll make up stories about you based off what they see on twitter and facebook, and then believe whatever anybody says about how. And here’s how I think you should deal with the Paparazzi:
1.) Don’t become one.
Like I’ve already said, it’s easy to hate on your haters. Stop.
2.) Embrace your critics.
If you have haters, it’s generally a sign that you’re doing something good. And you’ll never get better if you don’t have people telling you what they don’t like about what you’re doing. And when I say embrace, I mean invite them in. I think the Bible tells us to love our enemies because it can actually help succeed. Find a hater, take them to lunch, and ask them how you can get better. They’ll eat a nice lunch, and you’ll get to eat your pride. Have fun.
3.) Go to the party.
At some point, one of your haters will have something awesome come their way. The biggest mistake that the prodigal son’s brother made was that he didn’t go to the party after HE WAS IN THE RIGHT FOR YEARS. In all fairness, this brother had the right NOT to go to the party. And in all fairness, you have the right not to celebrate the good things going on in a hater’s life… But you’re better than that.
Whether it be a co-worker, friend, or family member, genuinely be happy for people that don’t like you. Find ways to celebrate what God is doing in their life. Keep your cool. If you’re being hated on, God must have positioned you there for a reason. If you’re not being hated on, I’d examine whether or not you’re really doing anything significant to begin with.