But who’s reviewing you?

We live in a world of reviews, don’t we? Hardly a day goes by without several emails turning up, wanting me to review something.

I imagine that’s presumably because they want to do better - and so, I hope, do we. All the time. I hope and pray that my next sermon will be my best yet, the next meeting I chair the most effective so far, the next mentoring meeting to start to be useful, and the next bit of training I deliver, simply out of this world. Or better than last time anyway…

So who’s reviewing you? Or if you prefer, who’s giving you feedback?

For some of us the answer to that will be, 'Well, to be honest, no-one.' I wonder why that is? For some of us it might be too painful after a difficult spell. Maybe we’re a tad depressed, and yet more criticism is the last thing we can manage just now. Or maybe we’re too proud to invite comments on how we’ve done, or too insecure, or a mix of all those and about a dozen other reasons all thrown in. Overall though, to invite some kind of feedback is a good idea, for you and those you lead. But how does it come?

1. From yourself. Your last sermon, for example. How was it? How could it be improved? Do you want to improve it? Did it hit home?
2. From your team (if you have one, a staff team, if not other staff, then other trusted people in your church). Don’t just review others; let them review you. That can be painful, but it’s useful. And if you do it, make sure you make the changes necessary. There’s nothing worse for your team than you asking for feedback and then completely ignoring it!
3. From your congregation. Apparently John Stott used to ask two senior members of the congregation to write to him with feedback after every one of his early sermons at All Souls. A humbling experience, but for John a very valuable one. Us too?
4. From a ‘critical friend’. This could be someone outside your situation, or a visiting preacher, asking them to note things they notice and talk about it over lunch. For us, being in the thick of things week in week out, we so often miss the obvious, and need a friend to point it out to us.
5. From your reading. This article could, I suppose, be a bit of a review. So could a conference talk; or a book you’re reading. But articles and books can only serve as a useful review if you are prepared to do something about what you’ve read or heard.

One final idea. How about an annual review? If you don’t have one, how about organising one for yourself? Choose a reviewer who can do a good job for you (probably someone you trust in the church?), and complete some kind of ‘Preparation Question Sheet’ beforehand outlining,for example things that have gone well, less well, how your spouse (if you have one) is finding things, what you’d like to change in the coming year, training you’d like to have, etc. And then sit down with them for what could be the most encouraging couple of hours of 2025.