It’s a beautiful sunny morning in Romeo on Memorial Day. We were out late visiting with some friends so everyone is a little slow in getting up this morning. But as we don’t have many plans today, it’s just fine.
One thing I like about getting back from vacation is a fresh perspective on things. After being away for a Sunday from church, it was awful nice to be back home. This may sound cheesy, but I’m pretty pleased with the vibe the church services are putting off.
The church staff is full of perfectionists… me being the worst of them. I have a natural tendency to forget the 95% of things that went great and focus my attention on the 5% that didn’t go to my liking. (In fact, people are willing and have left churches over a .5% thing… but I digress.)
I think this comes from the "theater and music" background of growing up. Burned on my brain are the sharp criticisms of former mentors and teachers who instructed through insult. I remember finishing shows where everyone in the audience was elated about a performance only to get intensely negative feedback over tiny things. ("You didn’t stick a line the way we rehearsed it" or "that one note was a tad flat.") In fact, I think I’d gotten so used to the back-sided compliments in my life that I vowed to just cut to the chase.
I’m such a people pleaser that the compliment part… I always felt it was insincere, said only to earn my ear for the harsh critique.
The back-sided compliment/critique:
"The performance went great, we brought down the house… but there were 3-4 things we need to fix for next time."
In an effort to just be direct, I would have preferred this:
Blunt force feedback:
"The performance would have been better had you done these 3-4 things better."
Here’s something I’m learning: People prefer the back-sided compliment/critique. While I may have focused on the negative… it seems most people don’t mind the negative when a few nice things are mentioned first.
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