Restoring Kingdom Builders

My wife and I just returned from a weekend trip to Southern California for a family wedding.  Because we drove 375 miles each way, I was concerned before the trip even started about traffic jams.

I hate traffic jams.

And I hate feeling trapped.

Evidently a lot of people agree with me because, whenever traffic backs up, people start doing weird things, like driving on the shoulder, or changing lanes incessantly, or getting off at the nearest off ramp (even when it doesn’t help at all).

Fortunately, we didn’t encounter one traffic jam while driving: not leaving Phoenix at rush hour, not on Highway 60 near Riverside (always a pain), and not on Highway 91 (thank God for toll roads!).

Because traffic jams make me anxious.

Anxiety occurs everywhere you find people: in medical waiting rooms, before school exams, and yes, even in churches.

Some events that cause anxiety in a church tend to bring everyone together, like the death of a prominent leader, a national catastophe (like 9/11), or a local natural disaster.  Since we cannot prevent or manage these events, we turn to each other for comfort and support.

But other events that happen in a church raise the anxiety level, like the introduction of an unpopular change, a steady decline in attendance, or the resignation of a popular leader.  Since many churchgoers believe these events could have been avoided, they react in the following way:

They complain.

And the ones who complain the most are the ones who can handle anxiety the least.

Meet Marie.  She’s been attending your church longer than anybody can remember.  Nearly everybody views her as a sweetheart.

But life hasn’t gone well for Marie in recent years.  She’s had problems with her relationships, jobs, finances, and body.  In fact, she’s suffered a lot – and doesn’t feel she’s deserved most of her maladies.

So she lives with a high level of anxiety.  Everywhere she goes, she hopes to find peace and understanding, but it usually eludes her.

But there is one place where she usually finds comfort and rest: at church.  When she experiences the loving acceptance of God’s people, Marie relaxes and basks in the beauty of Christ’s body.

However … it doesn’t take much for Marie to become anxious, even at church.  She becomes upset when the leaders try and introduce any kind of change.  She feels pain when she doesn’t know what’s going on behind-the-scenes.  And if the pastor says the wrong thing during a message, she’s ready … to complain.

Not just to her husband, but to her friends, to her small group, and to her ministry colleagues.  Marie is a chronic complainer.  And though she has her positive traits, her complaining – if left unchecked – could destroy her church.

The Bible has a lot to say about complaining, and it can be summed up in one word: don’t.

Sometimes the Bible also calls it grumbling or murmuring.

In Numbers 14:2, we’re told that “all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt!  Or in this desert!'”  God’s people complained because they were afraid to enter the promised land due to the giants the scouts had seen there – and they were particularly upset with their two leaders.  (Numbers is full of stories of God’s people complaining about God, their leaders and their conditions.)

In I Corinthians 10:10, Paul warns the church at Corinth, “And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.”  This incident is probably the one in Numbers 16 where 14,700 Israelites died after Korah’s rebellion.

In Philippians 2:14, Paul warns the church at Philippi: “Do everything without complaining or arguing …”  Evidently this church had a problem with both practices, especially the feuding women Euodia and Syntyche (see 4:2-3).

And Jude 16 refers to false teachers who are “grumblers and faultfinders” who “follow their own evil desires” and “boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”

You won’t find complaining commended in Scripture.  God doesn’t like it.  Why not?

First, complaining demonstrates a helpless attitude.  When I complain, I am saying, “I don’t like this situation, and I can’t do anything about it, either!”  But many times, we can do something – we just don’t want to do it.

Not long ago, my wife and I encountered an unpleasant situation at a church we were visiting.  It made us feel very anxious.  Complaining wasn’t going to make anything better.  We had two choices: leave the campus or stay and bear it.

We made a choice and stayed – and no longer felt helpless.

Second, complaining becomes contagious.  Have you ever seen a focus group on television?  At first, when the group is asked a question, the initial speakers seem respectful and positive.  But as soon as one person begins to complain, the dam breaks and others begin complaining as well.

In fact, church consultant Peter Steinke believes that complaining in a church may be compared to a virus in the body.  The virus travels through the body trying to find host cells.  If the host cell receives the virus, it replicates it and then spreads to other cells.  But if enough host cells resist the virus, it cannot spread.

We pastors are good at condemning the practice of complaining from the pulpit, but we also need to encourage those who hear complaints to resist them rather than receive them – because once a person receives a complaint, they tend to spread it to others.

This is often the point at which a church becomes unhealthy.

Third, complaining demonstrates a lack of faith in God.  There is often a permanency about complaining.  We act like life will never get better.  We say things like, “This church will never grow,” or “I can’t stand the music,” or “The pastor’s messages are getting worse and worse.”  But if God is involved, can’t the church grow?  Can’t the music get better?  Can’t the pastor start touching your heart?

For this reason, complaining factors out the Holy Spirit and factors in the flesh.  However, if we would turn our complaints into prayer, we’d see God do more and we’d gripe a whole lot less.

If you struggle with complaining, let me share four quick remedies:

First, speak directly with the person you’re unhappy with.  If you thought the pastor’s joke was tasteless, find a way to tell him, not five friends after church.  If you didn’t like that girl who was running through the worship center after the service, talk to her, not to everybody but her.

However, there is at least one exception to this rule.

If your pastor announces a policy, and you don’t agree with it, then either speak with him or those who put together the policy.  In fact, if a board created the policy, it’s perfectly acceptable to speak with the board member you know or like the most as long as you go on the record.

So if it’s a matter of personal sin, talk directly to the person who sinned.  If it’s a matter of policy, talk to any one of those who created it.

Second, talk to a friend outside the church.  There have been times when I’ve felt very strongly about an issue but (a) I wasn’t entirely sure I was seeing things right, or (b) I needed some additional perspective.  So I contacted someone who didn’t know the players and shared my concerns with that individual.  I would then incorporate as many of their suggestions as I could.  The advantage of this approach is that you’re not spreading the virus of complaining throughout your church.

Third, increase your prayer life.  Incessant complaining is often a telltale sign that a person has all but stopped praying.  If we took more of our complaints to God, we’d have fewer things to complain about with others.

Finally, learn to keep quiet.  Some people are more expressive than others, but you don’t have to give a running commentary on everything that happens to you in life – especially at church.  Just learn to muzzle your mouth as King David says (Psalm 39:1).

A few years ago, my daughter and I went to church at a famous cathedral in Scotland.  If my wife had been with me, we would have talked about the service afterwards, so I thought I’d take the same approach with my daughter.  As I started to make a comment, she assertively told me, “Dad, I don’t want to hear it!”

So I kept quiet.  (But it was killing me.)

May I encourage you to do two things about this post:

First, if complaining is a problem, take positive steps to eliminate its hold on your life.  You’ll be much more joyful – as will everyone around you.

Finally, choose not to receive other people’s complaints unless you can take action.  If you can’t, then send them to someone who can address their concerns.

If everyone in a church followed these steps, the virus of complaining would never plague us again.