In the 1990s, I worked for a discount retail company with stores throughout the southeastern US. I had recently been promoted from a buyer’s assistant to the budget and inventory control manager - work I was very good at and which makes me useful around stewardship season. Among my key roles was working with each buyer to help devise and manage their purchasing budgets, which was a tricky balance of internal and external factors.
One day I had to compile a report on … well, something I can’t remember now; it involved getting exactly two numbers from each buyer, something they would have at their fingertips. The other nine buyers quickly and efficiently gave me theirs, but one buyer only gave me one, and seemingly grudgingly (I don’t know what hoarding that number would accomplish, but there you go). I had to return to his office to get the second number in order to finish the report.
I approached kindly, and he invited me to sit for a minute. When I asked him for what I needed, he went on a long (easily 5 minutes) rant about interruptions and being so busy and how can we expect him to do his work and what does it even matter… it was, as you imagine, both epic and slightly terrifying. But it went so long that I returned from shocked and anxious to calm and kind - and as he ran out of steam, he sighed, saw I was not going to leave, finally opened the folder where the number lay in wait and gave it to me.
I said thank you, and as I rose from the chair, I said “you know, if you’d just given it to me when I first came in instead of wasting five minutes complaining, I’d have been out of your office for almost five minutes already.”
It is a truth universally acknowledged that humans would rather complain about something than do something.
It is less universally acknowledged that humans who complain about something – either with ire or care – rarely see anything change.
It is frustratingly acknowledged amongst those who lead in our congregations that the people who complain the loudest are the least likely to do anything about the thing they want changed.
Especially when asked.
It makes me wonder what all the complaining is actually about.
I think about that buyer often when I hear complaints from folks unwilling to do anything, most recently last summer, when the US government was wrestling with inflation and its causes (corporate greed is the answer, by the way); and while President Biden and the Democratic leadership were seeking ways to reduce inflation and suffering, the Republican leadership…complained. Loudly. They didn’t go to any of the meetings or the hearings on inflation reduction, they just wasted time bitching about it in the media. They flat out refused to be part of the solution to the problem they identified over and over and over and over.
And as I thought about this, and the buyer who would rather waste time complaining than give me the number I needed, I thought about all the people in congregations who have no problem wasting time complaining about things but have no interest in being part of the solution.
Sure, some things are not easily resolved – or aren’t actually a problem to others – so the complainer’s work is to hold the tension between their desires and the reality on the ground. But so many things that religious professionals and lay leaders get complaints about are easily resolved with a little reading or attendance or thought or perhaps some physical effort.
Which means a personal investment of time and talent in the congregation.
We make a mistake when we talk about volunteers in faith communities; I like what Erin Wathen writes at Patheos:
I balk at the secular nature of what it means to volunteer. To volunteer means that you are an outside resource, stepping in to help an organization in need. Volunteering is what we do when we pick up trash at the park, or build a house with Habitat, or help sort food at the local food pantry. Volunteering is what I do at my kids’ school on Fridays.
In other words, it’s what you do at a place that is important to you–but not at a place that belongs to you.
You cannot volunteer at your own church, in the same way you cannot babysit your own kid. Because the church belongs to you in the same way your family does. It’s your own place, your own people. So of course you help take care of it. Of course you do yard work and make coffee and teach the kids and sing in the choir and whatever all else it is you do for the home and the people that you love.
‘You cannot volunteer at your own church, in the same way you cannot babysit your own kid.’
I like that line. Wathen offers several terms for this role – discipleship, mission, priesthood of believers, service. That’s the one I like the most. Service gets to what we mean when we talk about shared ministry. If we are to understand the work of the congregation as shared ministry, then we are all serving the congregation, whether we are doing pastoral care, or building repairs, or nursery duty, or serving on the board, or ushering, or singing, or preaching, or working with the kids. Whatever it is, we are in service to the congregation and sharing the ministry.
We are not customers at the congregation we belong to.
We are not members who get tangible benefits for pledging, like a totebag or discounted tickets.
We are not consumers of church.
We are the church.
We belong to a congregation, and it also belongs to us.
And we do not babysit that which is ours.
Our complaints must turn into action - your action. Yes, that means actually doing something, but it also may mean just not wasting time (yours, your minister’s, your leadership’s), but it also may mean turning to wonder: I wonder why this bothers me… I wonder what I’m missing… I wonder what I need to learn about it… I wonder how to let it go.
I wonder what we could accomplish if we stopped complaining about the congregation and started serving the congregation.
It is a truth commonly known that many hands make light work, and it’s counterproductive to be upset with something when you are part of it.
It’s time to act.
Break’s over.