Church growth pundits back certain methods, strategies, approaches and techniques for the numerical growth of congregations and/or the eventual transition of declined churches into prosperity.
Their opinions and recommendations vary, and the church growth enthusiast can become confused over which technique or method is best.
However, one undeniable conclusion emerges from the church growth literature: No church has ever complained itself into prosperity. Flood waters of congregational complaining do not carry multitudes of outsiders into the church.
Something else to consider: A complaining congregation is not a healthy congregation. In the Word of God, behaviors of relentless fault-finding and heavy-handed criticism, grumbling, muttering, hand wringing, pouting and shrill griping are never presented as Christian virtues. Such "habits of complaining" don't achieve anything spiritually constructive. They smother congregational enthusiasm. They focus on personal discontent rather than the Person of Jesus Christ.
Personal discontent can easily morph into anger, which is, of course, at the root of complaining. Complainers don’t complain because they are presently experiencing an overabundance of joy; they complain because they prefer to be angry at that particular point in time. They want to complain and to exhibit a form of anger.
Frederick Buechner described both the appeal and the self-destructive tendency of anger: "Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."
Furthermore, as 1 Cor.10:10-11 makes clear, a prolonged lifestyle of angry complaints can actually provoke the wrath of God. For complaining congregations, the wrath of God results in something other than swelling membership rolls and exceptional offering receipts.
What is an antidote to the complaining so apparent and epidemic in many American congregations? One antidote has to do with thankfulness. Instead of angrily complaining, hurl yourself thankfully into the corporate worship of God. "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise, be thankful to Him, and bless His Name." (Ps.100:4)
Be thankful to God for that which He has given already. “Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!”—Ps.107:8.
Be thankful for the Crucified and Triumphant Son of God. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”—2 Cor.9:15.
Frank Clark once commented: "If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get."
And, the apostle Paul, well acquainted with hardship and struggle and personal suffering, was able to instruct churchgoers: "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."-- (1 Thess.5:18)