“Stop whining and complaining!” an older Christian told me in a note. “If you don’t like your church, go out and plant one. Join a ministry. Just stop complaining.”
There are two guys that I don’t want to be.
- Guy A: I hate church! It sucks. Who wants to bother with all of the junk in church?
- Guy B: Church is fine just how it is. Get involved and stop complaining.
I used to be Guy A, and I got reprimanded once by Guy B.
Neither guys are all that helpful. One is either too damaged or cynical to offer anything constructive. The other is too unwilling to listen to help anyone out.
There is a lot of room for listening, diversity of opinions, and room for growth in our congregations today. For all of the griping I’ve heard about the church, I wonder how much of it is the result of leaders failing to communicate or to listen. I also wonder if the gripers ever thought of doing anything beyond griping—as in, putting their ideas into practice rather than just complaining.
When I was a cynical, whining, complaining griper, two things were simultaneously true:
- I had some legitimate grievances.
- I was dealing with them in unhealthy ways.
When that older Christian told me to stop whining, he was right in part, but I had some really legit complaints. For instance…
Prior to his suggestion that I join a ministry, I had tried very hard to help a group of older men plan an outreach for the young adults in our town. An adjunct professor from my seminary invited me along since I was the closest member of the target audience for the outreach. The guys who met together had tons of ideas, and the meetings went something like this:
- The strongest personalities told us what they thought we should do.
- A few weaklings such as myself suggested their ideas may not be very practical.
- The strongest guys said, “Hmmm. That’s interesting.”
- Then the strongest guys told us that we’re going to do what they originally thought we should do.
I don’t know if my ideas would have actually worked, but whatever they planned never happened. They wanted something big and flashy with music, coffee, and an atmosphere of awesomeness. I suggested that maybe a community service project would be a better way to connect and live our faith a bit.
Was I ignored? Pretty much. That’s frustrating. I know lots of churches that cater to one generation in particular, and then they don’t want to hear from the younger generations who may have great ideas sometimes.
