— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
It is a fact: Nobody likes criticism. No one likes to be judged.
Working my whole life on: a) QI (Quality improvement) with a strong focus on monitoring and evaluation and, b) as health lecturer at the university, I have been implementing continuous evaluations. Either giving or receiving comments, recommendations, approvals or disapprovals.
I see from my international experience -previously working at WHO and currently coordinating our international and interdisciplinary Master programme on Global Health- that there are big cultural differences in terms of evaluations. In some countries, like Germany, evaluation (and control processes) are (very) common. In other countries (such as in countries with strong hierarchies), evaluations are rarely implemented as the people “below” those authorities cannot express opinions but must follow the orders from their “superiors”.
In our Master programme, we implement evaluations every two weeks. We ask our Master students to provide anonymous feedback about the sessions, which are summarised in three main features: What was positive? What was negative? and suggestions to improve the Master modules in the future.
Seeing the variety of comments is sometimes a painful process. Some comments are related for example to our (harsh) attitude, our (poor) participatory learning methods, our (lack) of skills to work together.
I believe that constructive feedback (i.e. criticism) gives all of us a wonderful opportunity to examine ourselves (i.e. self-reflection), offers a warning of our weak areas that need improvement, and helps avoiding unnecessary errors that could hurt other people.
If we fail to listen, our potential for personal, professional, mental, emotional, and spiritual growth is limited.
My loving sister Rocio (now in eternity) always wrote in her Christmas cards “every year, we are better persons”.
While evaluations are subjective and not necessarily all comments are valid, it is important to accept criticism:
- Do we immediately tend to reject the comment or defend ourselves?
- Do we always find excuses or people responsible for our mistakes?
- Do we have the habit of either getting angry or assume a victim attitude?
Instead, we should take the opportunity to ask our God if He is trying to tell us: What are our dark areas, which require improvement? What are the parts where we need to improve our attitude or behaviour?
In our example, we would need to thank our Master students for their interest in our growth. We should reflect on the observations the students are giving us and determining how to improve our programme.
We could apply the same process in our own personal lives: how can we improve our character, our attitude, our behaviour, or our coherence with the word of God? (i.e. “walking the talk”).
I always remember one sermon from Robin Stockitt (ACF initiator and our spiritual leader for many years): He mentioned that our God is the best gardener who is cutting the bad parts of the trees, protecting the bushes and fruits from weeds. He said that our God knows well where we need the cuts; perhaps he is sending us that “annoying” person who is irritating us, judging us to tell us something? Perhaps, God has planted us in this “uncomfortable” environment with a clear purpose to grow and reach our divine potential. Jesus died on the cross for us, to “clean” us from our weeds. When we remember this, the discontentment of others will feel less significant and hurtful. As we learn to accept criticism, we will find ourselves growing personally, professionally and spiritually.
“If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise” (Proverbs 15:31).
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 