The third reflection I would like to offer from my time as a worship minister is this:
Helpful feedback is hard to find
If you are a musician or have ever done anything on a stage at church you might be shaking your head saying, “people are ALWAYS willing to give me feedback. It isn’t hard to find.” So let me reiterate: “HELPFUL feedback is hard to find.”
More so than any other position within a church, EVERYONE thinks they know a little something about how to do the music, and accordingly it seems that everyone is willing to share that with their worship minister. They’ll say things like, “I loved that song, I just wish there were a picture on the screen for me to look at while you sang it.” or “I just don’t like that song, we just sang the same words over and over.”
While most of the time, the feedback received from members of the congregation is meant to help, it just doesn’t. Most people in the church that offer you advice, are really only trying to do one of three things: encourage you, discourage you, or convince you to help them accomplish their own personal agenda. (Notice I said MOST people. There are always exceptions, so please don’t send me an email about how I have tried to lump every church goer in America together.)
For these reasons I believe that it is VERY important that every worship minister find a few people who they can trust to be truly honest with them and ask them to offer regular constructive criticism. The best candidates for this role are often the people that never offer their advice unless it is asked for. It would also be helpful if these people were from outside the church.
The truth is, ministers (no matter what their job is) cannot let all of their feedback come from their general congregation. While it is good to have a grip on how your congregation views your ministry, we must constantly have people making us aware of how we are performing our ministry with an unbiased eye.