Yes, folks, every church has them – those people who believe
that the Universe should be configured exactly the way they want it. If anything is not to their liking, they will
raise “holy heck” to try to get their way. And the question that indicates the health of your church is
this: How do you deal with chronically
disgruntled Christians?
I recently read an article on the Harvard Business Review
site by Rosabeth Moss Kanter entitled “Nine Do's and Don'ts for Dealing with
the Disgruntled.” Her advice is directed
toward the business community, but much of it applies to church life, too. She shares,
Early in my career, when sharing a vacation house with a group of friends, I learned an important lesson from a classic book by anthropologist Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: It takes a lot of people cooperating to keep things neat, but it takes only one disgruntled dirt-monger to mess things up. The task for everyone else is not to let them.
I’ve been amazed over the years at how quickly some
churches, and church leaders, will cooperate with that one dirt-monger in the
church who wants to “mess things up” for everyone else. When a church or church leader believes that “everyone
must be happy” in the church, they have empowered that one unhappy person to
control the entire church… no matter how unhealthy, unbiblical, or selfish
their perspective might be.
Jesus had no trouble allowing people to be very
unhappy. He let the Rich Young Ruler walk
away unhappy. Lord knows the Pharisees
and other religious leaders walked away downright angry many times. He even allowed his closest friends and
followers to dwell in frustration with Him at times. Jesus did not lead based on what made others
happy, but what accomplished God’s great mission. And when we do anything less, we trade the
church’s mission and purpose for self-centeredness, even if the
self-centeredness is not personally our own.
Any wise parent who has dealt with immaturity knows
this: you get more of the behavior you
reward. When we see that parent who
gives in to their child’s temper tantrum in the toy store or on the candy aisle
at the grocery store, we all know… They just taught their child that temper
tantrums are effective tools for getting your way. They just helped create a “family terrorist.”
Long ago, I made a promise to myself that I would do my best
to NOT reward negative behavior in the church.
And I’d like to invite you to join me in that pledge. Here are some practical ways to keep that
pledge:
1. Stay focused on our life-changing mission. Catering to complainers is a time-wasting and
mission-killing distraction. When that
person begins demanding X, just ask, “Is X why God put us here? Will X help us reach an unreached world?” Or if they are complaining about Z, just ask,
“Is Jesus as upset about Z as you are?”
And above all else, don’t stop the train. You are on a God-given mission, a journey
toward a goal. If people don’t like
where the train is going, we have to have the courage to tell them it’s OK for
them to get off the train, but we’re not changing destinations.
2. Respond with a positive story.
No, the complainer won’t care, but the other people standing around will
leave with a positive picture in their minds that is more exciting than the
negative one that the disgruntled person was presenting. Compared to the stories of mission and
generosity and sacrifice and love and hope that fill the life of most churches,
most complaints are amazingly trivial.
By telling your positive story, you help put the complaint in
context. Doing this is also a way to
obey Paul’s command to focus on “whatever is pure, honorable, pure, lovely,
excellent, worthy of praise…” (Philippians 4:8).
3. Do not ever become their pawn. Why are they telling you their complaint,
rather than going to the person with whom they are upset? Why are they telling the Sunday School class
rather than bringing it up at the business meeting? Because whiners, complainers, and
dirt-mongers want others to do the dirty work for them. If you refuse, if you just say, “Sounds like
you need to talk to (person responsible),” it lets them know you won’t be their
personal problem solver. In other
words, you’re saying to them, “Grow up and act like a responsible adult.” This one change would dissolve 90% of church
conflict.
Also, don’t spend time telling their story for them. If they want to spread their negativity, make
them do it themselves rather than helping them.
The only exception to this is if you want to coach others in being ready
for a positive response: “Fred is complaining about the Pastor’s purple tie
again. I told him that if God didn’t
like purple, He shouldn’t have created crepe myrtles. After that, he just walked away.”
4. Be assured that the real issue is not whatever they
happen to be complaining about. If you
took those folks and plopped them down in another church, they’d just find new
things to complain about. And don’t
think that church is the only thing they complain about. There is some source of discontent deep down
inside that is the real source of their complaints. Maybe somewhere along the line (like in the
candy aisle at the grocery store 50 years ago), they got the idea that the
outside world should conform to their wants and wishes. Ultimately, it’s the same sin as in Genesis 3
– “I want to be the real ‘God’ around here.”
The bottom line is that temper tantrums should not work in
an organization whose agenda has been set by God Himself. Loving people does not mean catering to them,
as Jesus clearly demonstrated.
When standing before a powerful and disgruntled group, Peter
and John showed their commitment to God’s mission over human preferences when
they said, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you
rather than God” (Acts 4:19). What Rosabeth Kanter learned when sharing that beach house with friends is true of working together in the church: "It takes a lot of people cooperating to keep things neat, but it takes only one disgruntled dirt-monger to mess things up. The task for everyone else is not to let them."
