Wisdom, like experience, is often something we gain after it is too late.

When I was a younger firebrand, I cranked out a steady stream of blog posts and undergraduate papers about the problems in the church. Whenever someone challenged me to “do something about” I replied, “I am!” That’s because I mistakenly believed that sharing my brilliant insights (otherwise known as complaining) on Xanga, Myspace, and in my papers was an effective way to effect change. I would say, “I’m just trying to get people to think about what’s going on so they’d stop being stupid” (as if our problems were essentially sins of the mind).

My desire to make the church into my own image eventually petered out. As Christ loved me into maturity, and the ideas in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Life Together took root, I began to do the kind of reflecting I wanted everyone else to do. I’d like to share a couple of thoughts to help anyone who might be dealing with an immature whiner like me (a few years ago).

1. “No Church is perfect.” Though this is 100% true and wise, we need to realize that this sounds like a copout and infuriates whiners. This truism makes them scream, “that’s exactly the attitude I’m fighting against!” Having been on both sides of this truism now, it’s important to consider what’s behind this phrase.

Some may use it to head off further whining: “Bam! Here’s the truth. Get over it and stop whining.” Others may use it with kinder intentions: “Don’t you see? As long as the church involves imperfect people, it will never be perfect.”

Either motive fails to adequately shepherd the whiner’s heart, and thus works to harden rather than soften it toward Christ’s Church. At least two things are going on in the whiner’s heart: a desire for God-glorifying reform and an exact idea of what God-glorifying reform looks like. The desires is good, the idea is not. The idea is idolatrous. Great progress can be made if the whiner can be shown that his particular idea of God-glorifying reform is at least as idolatrous as the idols he sees in the church.

2. The Holy Spirit. Or perhaps it would be helpful to discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in effecting change and how he isn’t the Holy Spirit. Discussing the slow process of sanctification and how the Holy Spirit is immeasurably more invested, committed, and able to bring about change than the whiner could shed some light on the reform he seeks.

We must shepherd the whiner in such a way that his energies are directed to more fruitful endeavors, like maturing and being able to live with other imperfect people. To shut down or fail to lovingly correct such a brother feeds his antagonism. A firm, yet loving word may be all he needs to abandon his crusade against the imperfect church.

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