How to Receive Criticism: 2 Types of Critics Who Can Teach You

We must be able to learn from friendly and unfriendly critics: both usually have something helpful to say.

I’m working through a blog series on criticism. I started with how to give criticism, which is a lot easier. That series included articles including:

Now, we are on the harder part of criticism—how to take it. And, you need to. It’s good for you (and for me). I started with “Don’t Take it Personally” and then reminded you to “Consider the Source.”

It’s a hard balance—you want to receive criticism, but not from every single person. The fact is, being a leader attracts criticism—if you want everyone to like you, go sell ice cream.

However, I’d encourage you to consider receiving criticism not just from people who like you, but also from those who don’t. In other words, you can receive criticism from unfriendly and friendly critics.

Since it’s harder, I’ll start with learning from those who are not friendly. In many cases, they don’t talk to you, just about you. Either way, God can use criticisms from unfriendly people for you.

Unfriendly Critics

Unfriendly critics have taught me lessons by what they say, even if they don’t say it to me. For example, in speaking of making sure people understand the Bible, early in my ministry I would say, “We need to make the Bible relevant.”

And actually, I think that’s a true statement that can sometimes be misleading. At the encouragement of a person who most people would consider to be an unfriendly critic, I changed the terminology from “We need to make the Bible relevant,” to “The Bible is already relevant—it’s …