When People Throw Stones | Blaine Allen

Blaine Allen. When People Throw Stones: A Leader’s Guide to Fielding Personal Criticism. Kregel, 2005. 176 pp.

A Terrorist?

No, not really. But in your less-than-better moments, you have thought that, have you not? They were so nice. So unassuming. So service oriented. And then boom! With words strapped to bombs, those whom you serve let it rip. Innuendo. Gossip. Criticized before others. An outright frontal attack. When the smoke clears, it feels as if your life, your family, and for sure your ministry, lie in a bloody ruin. You expect it from those who make no claim to know the Lord, but from those who say they are His followers?

In a rustic area not too far from where I live, the professionals call them “straight drops.” No concrete vault. No plastic liner. Nothing but a poor man’s pine box wrapped in glorified contact paper. After the reading of Scripture, the last prayer, and the family’s final goodbyes, grave diggers do what they are there for–drop the departed straight into the dirt.

Nobody wants to be “straight dropped.” Bludgeoned with a verbal ax, thrown into a body bag, tossed into the dirt–nobody wants that. But many a pastor, staff member, missionary, teacher, administrator, parachurch worker, dedicated volunteer, have felt just that. Somebody was not pleased with their ministry, and did their critics ever let them know it! . . .

Maybe for you it’s not so much the words as the stifling environment of displeasure. By the tone of voice and the demeanor behind what is said, you know they are unhappy. You can hear it in the meetings. You can sense it in the halls. You can just tell it, and it leaves you in a pool of pain. In fact, you’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve become the target of tongues that zing words like bullets from an automatic. All that’s left at the yellow taped-off crime scene is a chalk outline . . . of you. Straight dropped.

The word dismiss may even be whispered. It may be more than whispered. You do not satisfy the expectations of those you serve. You do not meet their needs. It’s obvious they want a change, and that change is not going to be them. Words fly. Fragments bury deep. You feel disfigured. You wonder if others see your wounds. You wonder how much they have heard. Chop. Chop. Chop. What a harrowing experience! Straight dropped.

And you are about to die. Die by giving up on others. Die by giving up on ministry. And worst of all, die by giving up on the One who has died for you. Words destroy people, and that’s especially so in ministry. They can maul you to an emotional death. Is there life after that? Is there ministry after that? If there is, how do you get it?

You could try anger. Vent your spleen. Do what Samson did: “Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. Then Samson said, ‘With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them’” (Judg. 15:15-16). Because we naturally have a low tolerance for those who find fault with us, we could reason that our critic is, at best, the south end of a north-bound mule. . . .

You could go after your critic. You could try anger to revive your emotional life, but all your anger will do is raze everything in sight–including you.

You could kiss it off. But it’s obvious you have not done that, otherwise you wouldn’t have picked up this book.

You could bite your tongue. But will that give you a new, more livable world, and a fresh start? Or will it just drop you deeper into an emotional grave? How do you get your life and ministry back when those you serve make you hurt?

This is where criticism will make or break us. All responses are not equal; each context has its own profile. But to survive, all responses must be biblical. That is the “why” of this book: to help the ditched climb out of an emotional grave, so as to live and continue to minister. . . .

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

We know better than that. They do hurt. They hurt us. They hurt our spouses. They hurt our children. They hurt our ministries. And the hurt can fester: resentment, bitterness, spite, rage. The adage is just simply not true. In fact, words can do more than hurt. Emotionally, words can kill. Life is no longer life. Ministry is no longer ministry.

Your critics may know the price of everything, but they likely do not know the value of you. The Father does. Others that love you do, too. Join me as we learn together how to make it When People Throw Stones.

Taken from When People Throw Stones by Blaine Allen. Copyright © 2005 by Blaine Allen. Used by permission of Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.

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