Gripe, Gripe, Gripe
What’s the most ridiculous complaint you’ve heard in your church?
We’ve heard the usual. The drums are too loud. Crank it up, it’s too soft. The room is too dark. The room is too bright. That guitar player is too aggressive. Why don’t you let Mrs. So-and-so sing that Sandi Patty song that she does so well? Why don’t we do more hymns? Thanks for doing that hymn, but you screwed it up, just do it with piano the way God intended it to be from the red hymnal. Why do you let Mr. So-and-so sing so much, I don’t like looking at him. Why did you go longer than 11:45, I have things I have to do. Why are you so concerned about time, just let the Holy Spirit guide us. That prayer time went too long. Why don’t we spend more time praying? I get bored with getting hammered with missions and missionaries every week. Why don’t we spend more time talking about missions?
The most recent one is about chairs. Five weeks ago, we changed how the chairs are arranged in our worship center. You’d think we were burning an effigy of Jesus himself.
I love ministry. I love the people in this church.
And we talk about how worship isn’t about us, it’s about God. And everyone says “amen” and nods in agreement.
And then they get their shorts in a wad if you do something THEY don’t like.
I hope and pray that someday soon, we all start really getting it, instead of saying that we get it and acting like we don’t.
(Disclaimer: Paul is letting off steam. Paul is not speaking for his church, or his leadership. Paul’s views do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of anyone else. If you’re reading this and you go to Paul’s church, Paul loves you very much. If you’re reading this and you don’t go to Paul’s church, he loves you too.)
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Comments
This is how I got most of my grey hair. I served as an elder for six years, was chairman of the worship committee for four, and chaired the search committee for our former minister of worship/music (2000-2005). It’s truly amazing to see how personally people take their musical/aesthetic tastes. And you can attempt to argue your conviction, but then you have to ask yourself, “What’s more important? Winning an argument and permanently damaging a relationship, or trying to lovingly present my point and hope/pray to remain a shepherd.
CS Lewis’ quote on musical taste:
There can be two musical situations on which I think we may be confident that a blessing rests.
One is where a priest or organist (musician), himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly
and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and
coarser fare than he would wish in the belief that he can thus bring them to God. The other is
where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to
music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God,
and that if it does not edify him, this must be his own defect. Neither such a high brow or such
a low brow can be far out of the way. To both, church music will have been a means of grace:
not the music that they liked but the music that they have disliked. They have both offered, and
sacrificed their tastes in the fullest sense. (“On Christian Music,” in Christian Reflections)
Oh, to be a shepherd. Them animals can be so dumb sometimes 
…not entirely accidental that the Scriptures abound in sheepy (?) imagery.
Oh, and BTW, we have an opening for the position, Paul. The guy I hired in ‘00 left three years ago for Florida.
I like to do things for the sake of change if no other reason. That way no one gets used to anything and that way hopefully they won’t complain as much. Or if they do they’ll complain: We change things too much! And then I just smile
As someone with a Human Resources degree, I think a healthy level of bickering/complaining is healthy. It lets us know that people do actually care about what we’re doing and how things are set up, no matter how trivial. And I prefer that over bland apathy any day!
…however, I do agree with you. It can get frustratingly overbearing sometimes.
I am with you 100% on this one brother! I am sick and tired of the belly aching that goes on in churches as well! Why can’t we just put aside OUR preferences for the purposes of building the Kingdom?!? Okay . . end of my rant.