Looking Out For Mr. Cranky
Selected quotes from “Renew Your Congregation” by William T. McConnell:
Looking out for Mr. Cranky. Hasn’t every church had something proposed and found that a vast majority of the people, if not excited about the proposal, are at least willing to give it a try? Then someone begins to complain. They complain and gather a couple more complainers into their corner. Suddenly, a perfectly good ministry is stopped in tis tracks because a vocal minority is against it. The i rules because we don’t want to make anyone angry (20).
These guardians have several methods of controlling the direction of the church. As must as we hate to face it, many of these methods are unhealthy. Acceptance of such behavior by others in the church is why many church systems are dysfunctional. These behaviors are unhealthy: temper tantrums, threats to withhold financial support, leaving the church and trying to influence as many as possible to come with them, gathering allies and attacking (usually just verbally) those who disagree with them, and demanding that the pastor resign. Such behavior must not be tolerated. It must be confronted and named. In fact, willingness to confront negative, unhealthy behavior in the church is a sign of leadership (21).
Sometimes some people need to leave. If you plan to have everyone in the church get excited about the idea of the church being revitalized and transformed, but you don’t plan to really do anything until everyone gets on board with the plan, forget it (23-24).
Conflict is mentioned often in this book because it always accompanies transformation. Some conflict surround every change…and I’m not convinced that’s all bad (24-25).
Jay Dozier, another DOC pastor, says, “Any change will cause conflict with humans. Given 100 people, any change will make some of ‘em stinkin’ mad. And when they get mad, they will attack their leadership. And at that point, the response is not to ameliorate, but to stand even firmer. If anything, the leaders of the church must understand themselves as conflict initiators. If we’re looking for church transformation, then I presume that something needs to be changed (27).
If we are really paying attention, we start to realize that the church exists, not to meet my needs and the needs of my family, but to reach out to those who don’t know God and to help connect them to God. It begins to dawn on us that church is not primarily for us (31).
As difficult as it is for some, we must decide that church is not all about taking care of me and mine, but is about reaching others with the message of Christ. A sure sign that a church is dying is the presence of conflict over the personal preferences of the members. And a sure sign a church is healthy is the presence of large numbers of members excited about doing ministry and missions (50).
Thoughts?
