A Helpful Feedback Culture

The book of Proverbs encourages us to get wisdom and feedback (Proverbs 15:22, 15:31). It is important to cultivate a culture of feedback in church life to benefit from the wisdom of the whole body of the church.

Such a culture creates an environment where people feel able to bring their concerns and where encouragement and correction are present for all.

Proverbs encourages all of us to seek wisdom and feedback from others.

To pick just two examples: Proverbs 15:22:

“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed”

and Proverbs 15:31:

“Whoever heeds life giving correction will be at home among the wise.”

Cupboards, kites, and boats

So, we don't like it, but as we think about cultivating feedback in a plant, I think three images might help us think about how the planter relates to feedback.

The IKEA cupboard

The first image is the person who makes instructions for the IKEA cupboard.

The planter produces the step-by-step guide to constructing the cupboard and then hands the team the instructions, and they just have to follow the instructions to produce the finished product. No feedback is needed, except perhaps to ask for clarification, but the church planter has the plans - like Moses coming down the mountain with the tabernacle plans - and everyone else just has to deliver what he says. So, minimal feedback.

The kite

The second image is the kite and there's no pre-programming at all.

The kite flyer is constantly responding to the changing wind, or in church planting terms, the planter is constantly responding to changing circumstances, the different feedback he receives. He receives one view, he flips one way. He receives another view, he flips another way. The plans change depending on who he last spoke to.

The boat

The third image, the one we're aiming for, is a sailing boat heading for a harbour.

The captain of the boat knows the destination, he has a roughly planned out route, but it's not pre-programmed as wind and waves can vary. There are constant small adjustments of sails and steering, and the feedback of the crew helps with those small adjustments and also avoiding disaster if another boat gets in the way.

The church plant is more like a sailing boat heading for a destination than either a wind-blown kite blown everywhere by feedback or a step-by-step IKEA construction with no feedback wanted.

Feedback from the planting team is vital, but we shouldn't be transforming the direction of travel every five minutes.

Attitudes to help handle feedback

So, before we look at some tips on how to cultivate feedback, I'm going to briefly highlight three attitudes or truths that will help us handle feedback.

Be confident

We are confident because we're justified by faith alone. Feedback of things not going well, difficulties, and people not being happy with things can easily crush us. As church planters, we take it very personally because often our identity and value are caught up with the work we are doing in church planting.

But just like every other Christian, we're already loved by God: forgiven, absolutely right with God, and with the status of beloved children and heirs. And all of that was never about our performance or public opinion, but always won for us by Jesus on the cross.

All that is ours, simply by trusting Jesus.

And so, we need to work the glorious truth of justification by faith alone, adoption as children of God through Christ alone, into our bones. As a church planter, I can be confident I'm right with God, forgiven and valued by God, even if everything in church planting goes wrong, even if my part in church planting goes wrong.

Because Christ really has done everything.

Be humble

As a church planter, you probably thought more about the church, and planting in a particular place, than most people in your team. But you're not the only one. With godliness and wisdom, humility recognises we need insight and input from everyone to make the best choices.

If the captain of the sailing ship does not listen to a crew member who's spotted a rock, or that a rope is stuck, the entire ship can be wrecked. We need the insights of others.

Be loving

Loving the people as children of God, not just workers. Church planters are pastors, shepherds of the flock God gives us to care for.

If our vision and plan becomes everything, we treat people as workers and, if they cease to be useful workers, we are happy to, in Mark Driscoll's unhappy phrase, “discard them as dead bodies behind the bus”.

God cares more that we love the people in our team as his children than that our particular church plant is successful.

So: confident in our identity and value because we're justified by faith alone, humble to recognise we need wisdom from everyone, and loving the people God has given us as people and not just workers.

A helpful feedback culture

With those attitudes in place, how do we cultivate a helpful feedback culture? Here are some tips - there's plenty more that could be said, I'm sure.

Be clear on non-negotiables and flexibles

Being clear in your own mind and with the team what is non-negotiable and what is flexible helps you know how to handle different types of feedback, different areas of feedback.

The non-negotiables must include the gospel and the place of the Bible and things like that, but, also over time may include choices you have made together on, for example, the place you're planting or church culture, where you will eat meals together, etc.

If feedback is about a non-negotiable, you can patiently teach and explain why that isn't changing and hope people accept that. But if they leave, then that's okay.

If it's a flexible thing, then you look at whether this is something to act on or not.

But confusing those categories or not communicating what is non-negotiable will make it hard to stand firm when you should, and hard to adapt when you should.

Be a non-anxious presence

That's a phrase from a psychology from Edwin Friedman, but I think it gets at something helpful, which Paul highlights in 2 Timothy 2:24-25:

“And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth.”

Being unshocked and non-defensive, sympathetic but not overcome, concerned but not panicked, is a very powerful part of leadership. If you respond with either anger or fragile crumbling, then people don't feel safe to come to you with concerns. And if people don't feel safe to come to you with concerns, then you won't get the critical feedback that stops the ship sinking.

So, be a non-anxious presence, welcoming feedback, responding in a controlled and caring way.

Invite positive and negative feedback

Now, most of us don't like inviting feedback on our ministry or our plans. It feels a bit like an exam. But by inviting feedback, we create a culture where both encouragement and correction are present for us and then for everyone. If you invite feedback, you're more likely to get it at a time and emotional place you're ready to handle it well, rather than at that low point where you are more likely to respond badly.

If you invite both positive and negative feedback, you help the grumbler to rejoice in what's good, and the over-optimistic to be more realistic.

Fourthly, and lastly, lead corporate feedback. That is, have times in your planting team gathering and then later in your church business meeting for reflecting together.

What is going well? What hasn't worked as we hoped? What are we excited about? And what are we anxious about as we look to the next stage?

Leading these reflections corporately means people hear different perspectives and voices in the group. The Eeyores hear the Tiggers and vice versa.

That can help everyone care for everyone. It reduces also the sense that leaders are ignoring my feedback, my suggestion, because they hear “well other people in the team have different views”.

Leading corporate feedback then leads naturally into corporate prayer, which can include lament for things that have not gone well. Thanks and praise for things that have gone well. And dependent prayer for things that people are anxious and worried about.

May we be wise church planters who cultivate feedback and respond to the diverse feedback wisely.