I’d also be interested to hear your insight on “how to develop thick skin without getting a calloused heart.”

Wow. Brother, by God’s grace the Holy Spirit is all over you! This blog has been so helpful to me. My fear is that, I’ll want to return to some of these posts (and some of the comments) in a few years when I’ll need them again but not be able to find them. Have you considered consolidating these into a book? Please consider it.

Brandon, You hit on some great points… Preparing messages should be done out of obedience to what God wants us to say instead of what people will think! Also, you are so right about family. You may be able to endure critics, but it is often harder on your wife when she hears bad stuff about you.

Bob and Jim, I’m so glad these posts are somewhat helpful. Thank you for contributing your thoughts!

I’m in a situation where strong leadership is required and tough decisions are needed and I’ve been, as I reflect honestly, very concerned about my reputation rather than the health, strength and destiny of the church.

Thanks for being used by God to speak directly to me. I’m challenged to lead strong, under the Lordship of Jesus, and leave reputations to Him.

Thanks for blogging!

I am not sure I can say why but I always think I can convert my critics into liking me and then it never works. I need to learn from my past experiences.

I do feel very blessed because a year into our launch I have had very few critics and the ones I have had I did not internalize.

I am so thankful for the guidance I get from everyone who posts here.

This is a great blog.

Every leader will always be a target. Our reputation is not our but God’s.

He knows what he is doing anyways.

J

J.G., Welcome back. We’ve missed hearing from you.

Joe, You don’t owe me anything. It is a dream come true for me to share with pastors.

Scott, You are right!

Sounds a lot like Jesus.

You don’t know this, but you are training me.

Thank you. I owe you something. God will tell me how to bless you.

My recommendation: LAUGH–a lot!

That means not taking personal credit when something goes well, and not taking personal criticism when things go not so well… when we realize we’re simply a tool that Christ chooses to use, it takes a lot of the people-pleasing pressure (say that three times fast) off our backs.

In the end, the only oppinion that matters is Jesus. When we truly live in the security of who we are in Christ, losing control of our reputation doesn’t seem so scary…

In my experiences I’ve found that any time we step outside of the comfort zones of silence and relative obscurity and attempt to share a message to more than just a handful of our closest friends, we should almost always anticipate some form of either critique or dispute.

The hard part is separating our concern for how we appear to others from our concern about maintaining the integrity and relevancy of the message.

Ultimately, like you said, any time we put a great amount of focus and attention on our own reputation is usually a time that we can be certain that we have removed our focus off of Christ.

Thick skin can be a blessing, as long as we don’t let ourselves become numb to the thoughts and feelings of others!

Thanks for the encouraging post, Craig.