The moment they hear it, they feel the “cringe factor” throughout their body. Even as the first few words are spoken, the recipient feels his or her emotions plummeting. It is the one sentence that is uniformly dreaded by pastors and church staff. It typically begins with these words:
“People are saying that . . . “
The full sentence could say; “People are saying that you don’t visit enough.” Another example is: “People are saying that our student ministry is not doing well.” Or one more example is: “People are saying that you don’t have good office hours.”
The sentence might specify a group while maintaining anonymity for the individuals: “Some elders are not happy with you” or “A lot of the staff are unhappy.”
You get the point. It could be phrased a number of ways, but the meaning is still similar. “People” is never defined. The true complainer is never identified. It is one of the most frustrating and demoralizing sentences pastors and staff will hear. Here are some reasons for the frustration:
- The complainer lacks the courage to speak for himself or herself. So he or she hides behind the deceitful veil of “people are saying.” Leaders in churches know that when complainers lack courage to speak for themselves, or when they have to hide behind anonymous complainers, they are trouble in the making.
- The leader has no recourse or action to take. These complainers never identify the source or sources. So the pastor or staff person cannot follow up and speak directly to the dissidents. He or she is left with a complaint that cannot be resolved due to anonymity.
- The leader immediately questions the motive of the complainer. The moment the ministry leader hears those words, “People are saying . . . “, he or she doubts the credibility and the heart of the complainer. The approach is cowardly; it thus is always seen through the lens of doubt and frustration.
- This approach is a double frustration for the ministry leader. First, he or she has heard yet another criticism. Most ministry leaders have to deal with criticisms too often. Second, the ambiguity of the complaint and the source of the complaint can leave a leader wondering if the problem is really bigger than reality. He or she can waste a lot of emotional energy on something that really may not be such a big deal.
- Indirect criticisms can be the most painful criticisms. Most ministry leaders deal better with someone who is direct and precise in his or her concerns. But indirect criticisms such as “People are saying . . . “ or “I love you pastor, but . . . “ hurt more because cowardly actions and duplicitous behavior are added to the criticism itself.
As a leader in a local church and in other places, I got to the point where I did not entertain such veiled criticisms. I tried to be polite and say, “I am sorry, but I cannot listen to you further because you will not give me the specific sources of the concerns. If you are willing to name those people specifically or, even better, get them to speak to me directly, I will be happy to hear the concerns.”
Has my approached worked? Frankly, I don’t recall any of these critics being happy with my response. But I have had to learn that there are certain people in churches and other organizations who have the spiritual gift of complaining. And they will exercise that gift frequently and with vigor.
I have to move on to those who have positive and encouraging solutions. Life is too short to deal with cowardly complainers.
Let me know what you think about this issue.
Posted on December 17, 2014
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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343 Comments
My response is typically: “Thank you for sharing that with me. Now please allow me to ask the same first question that God first asked mankind in the shadow of a similar conflict, “Who told you that?”.”
I figure God set a pretty good example in the Garden of Eden in the first step toward conflict resolution…I’ll follow His lead.
🙂
I like that line. Thank you for bringing it forth in the discussion. I had never connected that line with this topic.
One topic I would like to have heard more about in the comments is a leader’s responsibility to lead and demonstrate Jesus’ teaching on Matthew 5:24 & Matthew 18:15 to go to one another. What I’ve heard from several comments is that we shouldn’t be dismissive of annoyomous complaints because there may be some validity.
As a leader the primary importance is to model Jesus’ teaching . I can be fairly certain that I’m not the first one to discover in doing so that the “complaint” when you actually talk to the “source” doesn’t pan out to be as presented by the voice saying “people are saying”. But that may be another topic for another article.
I have dealt with this issue on different levels in all of the churches I have served. What I have learned is this: the deeper issue is whether the pastor, leadership and body of Christ are living their lives centered on the Word of God and growing in maturity with an outward focus. There is so much wonderful instruction on how to deal with conflict, both personal and in the body of Christ, in the Gospels and the Epistles. My question is:
If you give immediate ear to a person representing an anonymous group of people who are complaining because they are in disagreement with the pastor or church leadership (which is by definition a faction and warned against in the New Testament, see Titus 3:10), are you being obedient to the Word of God? If you do not lovingly direct that person to the biblical instruction on how to handle conflict or disagreement, are you as a pastor and leader helping mature them and present them to the Lord?
The Bible warns against grumbling and complaining and factions (Paul told Titus to reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is sinning). Jesus and Paul were very direct in how to relate to people, complaints and conflict. If more of the body went to the Word as their source, if more leaders supported the biblical instruction, wouldn’t there would be healthier churches?
Usually these types of complaints point to a much deeper problem of unhealthiness in a church. Factions develop over change, worship styles, personal preferences and often uncover an “it’s all about me” heart.
The pastor should not be the only one who is approachable or responsible. Elders/deacons were clearly appointed in the New Testament church so that the pastor could focus on teaching the Word of God and not neglect it. The pastor is often held responsible to do it all, rather than the church carefully choosing spiritually mature Christians for leadership (See Timothy and Titus) who are mission-focused, rather than maintenance focused.
A great book on this subject is The Peacemaker by Ken Sande. In chapter 9, he writes clearly about the biblical steps to deal with conflict.
One final note, if a pastor is truly unapproachable, then the elders should be lovingly holding him accountable. What I have found more often than not is that a person who gossips about his pastor being unapproachable has never actually tried to talk to him. Sometimes it helps to take an elder or a friend along. It often takes courage to be obedient to the Word of God.
I’ve heard that you can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Frankly, anonymous critics usually have more interest in being part of the problem. Those willing to be part of the solution are more significant investments of a leader’s time.
AMEN!!!!
Part of the problem is that so many anonymous complaints are regarding inconsequential issues. Not that the complainer thinks so, but that in reality it is. IE, “some people are saying that…the music isn’t any good….your sermons are “x”….we aren’t doing enough “x”
If a church, or a pastor, is doing their job right, 99% of these types of problems are “problems” because they are deliberate choices that were made. I understand that YOU don’t like this music, but we have made these choices for this specific reason, etc. These typically inconsequential issues are almost exclusively personal preference issues.
If you think it isn’t a personal preference issue….ie, theological and doctrinal issues….than either the Elders are doing their job to correct errant teaching, or, they are not. And if they aren’t correcting what you believe to be errant, than the clearly agree with it….aka, that IS the position of the church. And at the end of the day, right or wrong, you complaining about the churches position isn’t going to suddenly cause them to say, “you know, we always thought we were a complementarian church, but, Sally and Steve disagree….lets reevaluate this whole thing!!”
Sometimes these anonymous complaints are based in “trying to help”. The concept being, if only the pastor knew that it was off putting when he does “this” we all would be so much happier. But if the pastor doesn’t already have mentors in his life who help him grow and mature….getting some anonymous complaint that “People are saying that your jokes are obnoxious and distracting” isn’t going to really do much at all. Because as many anonymous comments like that a pastor gets is going to be countered by many others who love that part of the pastors personality.
As a church secretary and a pastor’s daughter, it really bothers me when people complain that the pastor didn’t visit them in the hospital, when he didn’t even know the person was hospitalized. A caller once said “you don’t care about people” which was very hurtful because we do care, but we can’t visit you in the hospital if we don’t know you’re there.
As a pastor, that sort of thing frustrates the daylights out of me. Is the pastor supposed to read people’s minds? Many people commenting on this thread seem to think so.
As a physician, I can tell you that doctors are often not told that their patients are hospitalized until days or weeks later. Everyone assumes someone else must have notified me.
Pastors have it even harder. Much harder.
The changing face of medical hospitalizations has made it more difficult. Fifty or even twenty years ago, most hospitalizations were in the local community hospital and lasted weeks or even months. In the course of a morning, a pastor could go to the local hospital (where he was recognized & welcomed by name) and spend 15-20 minutes with each of 5-6 of his flock there.
Now, in order to visit a parishioner in the hospital, the pastor must not only find out which of the many local, regional, and quaternary care hospitals in which each of his flock are stabled (anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours from home) — he must find a parking spot (no more clergy lot) and navigate an unfamiliar building. Overzealous hospital staff, eager to prevent privacy violations, may decline to answer questions like “Is Mrs. Jones in room 314, and is she OK to receive visitors right now?” Given that patients in hospitals are now much sicker on average than in previous generations, Mrs. Jones’ visitors may have to don gowns, masks, and gloves before entering.
Mrs. Jones might not even be in her room when the pastor calls because she is “down in radiology and we’re not sure when she’ll be back.” Mrs. Jones is probably sleep-deprived because nurses have been coming in all night and messing with her IV, and six different med students, residents, doctors, and specialists have been in between 5-10 AM asking her to tell her story again and again. So finally when she’s able to fall asleep at 1 pm, her pastor (who just now found out which room she was in) knocks and comes in, waking her up, much to the anger of Mr. Jones, who can’t believe their pastor is so unfeeling.
Her pastor, embarrassed, backs out and offers to call again the next day. But Mrs. Jones’ insurance won’t pay for more than a 2-day hospital stay, so as soon as she’s stable enough to leave, she’s out the door. In the busyness of signing her forms and getting her followup appointments and collecting her prescriptions, she and Mr. Jones forget to notify the pastor, who shows up an hour after they’ve left.
Thus, pastors who can do ANY congregational visitation in the hospital setting are amazing. Congregants who take this service for granted are COMPLETELY out of line.
Wow. Amazing. Thank you so much for your kind and understanding words. It’s hard even for the evangelical hospital chaplain to visit their patients, as I saw this firsthand when I shadowed a chaplain for 2 weeks in seminary.