Episode 9 - Quit complaining

Pastor Dan is joined by special guest, Director of Discipleship Mandy Stevens to talk about why complaining can be such a serious spiritual issue

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hey everybody, welcome to another Sermon Prep Podcast. This is Dan Metzger. I'm the pastor of St. Mark's United Methodist Church here in Finlay, and today we have a special guest, our Director of Discipleship, Mandy Stevens.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hello. Thanks for having me, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Oh, absolutely. I don't know if you had a choice. I just told you you were doing it.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I came for a staff meeting and he's like, hey, you're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

And like, yeah, here we are. Here we are. So we have started a new sermon series where we are talking about things that we are quitting. And so we're not quitting our jobs, right? We're not quitting our jobs. We're not quitting our jobs. That isn't a um but uh we're talking about things that as followers of Christ, as Christians, that sometimes we need to uh quit doing. Uh this last week we talked about making excuses. And uh this Sunday we're gonna be talking about uh this verse from Philippians that talks about uh how we need to quit complaining. And it actually talks about um grumbling, which I think is just a great, a great word because I think we've all we know those people, or sometimes we are those people who just like mutter stuff under our breath or um just are kind of you know angry, angry about things sometimes. Um, and so I put out this question on Facebook this week, and I know that you haven't been on Facebook a whole lot recently, so I'm just gonna ask you now. Um, so I asked a couple of questions on Facebook. I first asked, what are some things that you find yourself commonly complaining about?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

That's a good question. Well, I wasn't on Facebook, but my husband saw it and he goes, Oh, you have a really great opportunity. Get on there and post like my boss is the thing I complain about most. And I was like, Well, I would say that to Dan's face. Not on Facebook. No, I really don't complain about Dan.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Um at least not to my face.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

At least your face.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Um goodness, I wish there weren't so many things to choose from here, but I I feel like I complain a lot. I feel like I'm not the most grateful person, but I often find myself complaining about like the little things of my house that it's a mess, or that it's dated, or that I have to walk all the way to the basement to do laundry. Um which honestly my husband right now is like, I do the laundry anyway. So, you know, he does.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

And you and you were sharing a little bit, and hope this is okay to talk about. But um, just the idea of like being uh in an area recently where you saw more poverty and and it was um and yeah, some of the stuff that maybe we take for granted are things that you know we complain about these things, but for other people, like those are luxuries, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Like, oh, I've got laundry in my house, but it's down in the basement, yeah, right? Or you know, whatever, whatever it might be. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, as my um my 10-year-old and I were trying to get ready at the same time this morning and we were fighting over the one sink in the bathroom. She goes, We really need two sinks. And I said, Yeah, we do. And then I said, wait, but some people don't even have bathrooms in their houses, you know, like let's be thankful. We have that. We have more plumbing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Right. And I was I was remembering, uh, we're talking about I remembered a sermon series that we did uh several years ago. It's called Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy. And it was uh kind of around the idea of like how we just yeah, we take things for granted. Um, this like we complain about the airport and all the weights, and oh, this is taking forever, and and all this stuff is like, yeah, but like you're you're sitting in a chair in the sky and you're getting to fly like uh like you're some sort of myth or something like that. It's it's incredible. But we um but we so often, yeah, we find ways to complain about to complain about everything. Yeah, to complain about everything. So so that was one question that I asked. And then the other question um that that I asked was, what are some things recently that you're just very grateful for? Um, and I thought it was interesting. So I posted both those. I posted them a day apart. Um, the one that uh where I asked what what your complaint is, uh that one got double the amount of of responses than the one where uh I asked what people were grateful for. Um but what are some things that you're that you're finding yourself grateful for recently?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Oh yeah, but at first, how sad that like it's so much easier for us to come up with things that we complain about than that we're grateful for. And again, I'm there too. Um what brings me joy? Uh a few things I would say. The a couple mornings ago, I woke up and my uh window was open. We had left it open all night in our bedroom and I heard birds chirping. And it's just those little things, you know, those reminders of spring and nature and all the things that God's created uh that really brings me joy. I love that so much. Uh and being with kiddos on Sunday morning, I've gotten to teach backstage kids some and um just help them to understand these things that you're talking about. Corinne always plans amazing lessons for us that I get to lead back there when I'm back there. So that brings me joy just to see people, um, whether it's kids or adults, understand concepts that maybe they haven't understood before. And really creating new things for adults here, um, as my role as director of discipleship, uh, being able to just create new things and find ways to help us all to grow uh in our walk with Christ, um, in our busy lives. Like, what does that look like? You know, and just uh trial and error, trying new things.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Um we're messing with people this week, right? Like we're so we always put the faith five in the bulletin, which is you know, it's got some scriptures and things in that um so that you can be reading scripture throughout the week because we know that that's so important to someone's spiritual growth, but uh we're trying to add to that a little bit more and and switch it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, yeah. So um kind of over the last couple months I've been thinking like, oh, it's nice to read a scripture, but like how do we take it a little bit further? So um instead of having seven verses for the week for Faith Five, we now have five. Um, but each verse on the Faith Five will have like a reflection question as well as a short prayer. So I think it'll really just help us to think about the scripture in hopefully a more meaningful way, and then um just have a prayer about it. You know, sometimes we don't know what to pray. Um and so I'm hoping that'll be helpful. So there are five. It'll be Monday through Friday this week. So everybody gets the weekend off. You're welcome. Um, and yeah, so we'll try that and see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah, I think it'll be really good. I I'm always excited about different ways that we can try to, you know, live into our faith and especially things that we can do throughout the week because it's so easy to make our faith just uh just a Sunday morning thing instead of a you know everyday 365 uh 24-hour day kind of thing. And so I I really love this being able to have just some tools to be able to use during the week to uh dive into the scripture, dive into our faith a little bit. And uh, and they're usually things that kind of tie in with what we've been talking about at church. So um it's not just like a 30 minutes and done kind of thing. It's uh let's talk, let's think this through for the week. So I think that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

I really like to think of Sunday mornings as like just the start of the week of discipleship, of learning and growing closer, you know, like it's a great start, and how do we continue that through the week? And so the feed five is definitely one way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, yeah. That's great. All right, so we're talking this week, obviously, about this idea of quitting complaining and um just some of the stuff that there's a couple of things that I'm gonna be talking about during the message, um, just very briefly, that I thought would be kind of interesting for us to talk about today. And um and and we've already kind of talked about it uh a little bit, but one is kind of this idea of um what what's kind of our scale between um what how much we complain and and how much we compliment, or um how you know our positive and our negative. If if you had a scale uh that um where you weighed your words and um after a week you took everything that was a complaint or something negative and you put it on one side and everything that was a compliment and put it on the other side, um, which way would the scale tip? What would that what would that look like, right? And I know. And so when I preach these things, a lot of these are directed at myself, and you all just get to listen. Um but we're all growing, we're all growing together.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Um I I think that we live in a culture that um that seems to value critique and criticism above compliment. And so we're we're constantly um trying to figure out you know how do we uh how do I get my voice heard? And if I'm gonna get my voice heard, it seems to be the thing that people are gonna value more is if they hear my critique or hear my complaint or hear whatever, other than me trying to say something, you know, kind or uplifting or whatever. Um so we tend to put those things, I and maybe, maybe I'm uh maybe I'm off on this, but do you feel like that's kind of a that that's kind of a cultural norm that that we do like that things seem to be more negative?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I mean you just have to open Facebook and go to the friendly neighbors group.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, that can be accessible sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I mean, yeah, you just see so much more company then think of like Yelp reviews and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Like people I think are much more likely to get on and say, here's what I didn't like than they are to get on and say, here's what made me happy or what I enjoyed and that kind of thing. Like we're just not programmed or wired that way to uh to compliment in that way. And um, so yeah, I was thinking about that a little bit, and like if I would to weigh my words, like if if I would to stop, if I were to stop the complaints coming out of my mouth, how much less would I talk if I was if if I only let you know the good things, the good things come out.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Um what's the what's the saying we were taught when we were little, right? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Right. That may be a quote that will be uh on the screen this Sunday. Oh, sorry, no, you're you're totally good. This this podcast is really all about stealing my thunder for Sunday. Um and and yeah, because I I'm talking about three, I'm gonna put three different verses up uh right in a row, two from Paul, um, one being our main scripture for the day that says do everything without grumbling or arguing. Uh, another one from Paul from um uh from Ephesians, um, that's escaping my brain at the moment, but where where he talks about that, where he talks about um you know letting only wholesome talk coming out come out of your mouth. Um let no one, I think it's what it says, let no one's wholesome talk come out of your mouth. And then uh the third one from my mom that says, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say nothing at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And and like this I don't think I have that one in my Bible, Dan. Is it just yours?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

It's just from my mama, yeah. And uh but but I think it's from most people's mamas, right I would imagine um that we all heard that lesson at some point in time. And if we what would it look like for us if we teach our we try to teach our kids that, but then we as adults don't always model that very well. They they hear it from us, right? And I think we have as as adults sometimes have like whole friendships or or uh friendship groups or relationships that are that revolve around complaining. Um like it's time to get together and whine about stuff, and we tend to do that, uh tend to do that quite a bit. So that was one thing I was thinking about was just like what's like if I were to weigh the two things in my life, um what that what that looks like. Um the other thing that I was thinking about was um like how I receive complaint, how I receive criticism. Like, do I buy into it? Do I feel do I let myself feed into that? Because I think it's easy when somebody's critical of you to just want to fire back, right? And want to defensive, yeah, want to be defensive, and then it just kind of breeds this whole negative life and negative attitude and everything. And so one thing that I that I had to kind of learn early on um was that um that I'm not going to I can't give weight to criticism and um complaint from people who aren't also willing, who I also wouldn't get advice from or who wouldn't be somebody who would give compliments, right? If it's fully just negativity, um then I have to look at that person and say, there's a heart issue going on there with that person. I'm gonna pray for them, but uh, but I can't I can't let that be the thing that keeps me up at night. Yeah. Uh but what we love, and we were talking about a little bit, is um it are those those compliments, those um when people do let the the good things come out, and instead of complaint, they give they give the compliments, and that can be just super life-giving.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

It is, yeah. I was telling Dan a little bit ago that I'm not gonna name names, maybe, but somebody after church or after seeing inspiration on Sunday came up and just poured life into me. It was just like, I don't know if you know how like grateful we are for you, and you know, we see the things you're doing here, and you know, all those things that like we just don't hear that often. Not that people are complaining to me either, they're not, you know. Um, but just to hear those things is so life-giving. And I was like, you know what? I wanna I wanna be that to somebody else too.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah, we need those things because I think it takes like for me, it takes if if I get 10 compliments and one complaint, what's the thing I'm waiting laying at night thinking about? I'm not thinking about all the nice like I lay awake thinking about the critique or the criticism or or whatever. And so I have to be able to figure out in my own heart how to make sure that I that that I'm putting those things in the right boxes and uh and not giving too much credence to something that somebody else did that that might be like a real heart issue. Now I think I don't think that means, and and I'll I won't dive in it too much right now because it's a big part of the sermon on Sunday, but um there's obviously times where you have to have conversations with someone, yeah, and that there's there's ways that we need to, you know, not everything is perfect, not everything's sunshine and rainbows, and sometimes there's things that we've got to got to address. And so um I just think about like what are the healthy ways of of doing that? And when is it when's it a complaint and when is it a hey, we need to have a discussion kind of thing? Yeah, and to me, I think um the complaints come down to uh what's the motivation behind it? Yes um are we staying on topic? Am I talking to the person who actually has something to do with this, or am I just gossiping with somebody? Yeah, like, let me just tell you about how terrible this person is. Let me just, you know, like, can that person do anything about it? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

And I've also thought about like the amount of times I've sat and talked with somebody who's had complaints about someone, and they're telling me, tell me not, like, let me stop you for a second. Have you talked to them about this? Yes, and like, well, no, like, all right, well, maybe start there. I can't do anything about this, right? You've got to have that kind of those things can be hard. Yeah, it's gonna be hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, I um as a business owner too, and like we have staff under us, like that's our least favorite thing about owning a business, but like it's important, you know, it's important to help them grow, it helps us grow, like, yeah, but how do you approach those? You know, typically we try to use a lot of the like I feel language, or you know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, and it I think it's okay if you're staying on the topic, right? If you're staying on on the thing, um, and you know, I'll probably use some sort of example along the lines of I think we do this a lot in like in relationships, marriage relationships, especially, where is the fight actually about the thing or is it about something else?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

You know, are you just bringing up that mental list of all the things they've done wrong in the past?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, and then all of a sudden you're like, why are you breathing so loud? Like and it's like, is it really about the breathing loud or is it about you know something something else? It's yeah, uh we tend to do that with one another, and it's not really about that thing. So are we staying on topic? All of those kinds of things, in order to speak into each other with love and grace and building somebody up or tearing them down, yeah, exactly. Is the point to yeah, that that's another great point. Like, is this to is this to help them or is this to belittle them and raise yourself up? Those aren't great reasons to to come at somebody with criticism. Yeah, because that's when it turns into complaint. So, and then overall, and we'll kind of wrap up with this, but overall, I think that a lot of times our when we find ourselves having uh complaint, it's because we've put ourselves at the center of the story that things aren't going my way. And so I'm going to I'm gonna here's my list of grievances, and here's the list of things that I think need to be different. And I think the way to get out of having that kind of complaint mindset is to make sure that the right person's at the center of the story, that I'm not the center of the story. Jesus is a Jesus is the center of the story, and Paul is just a great example of that. He's writing this, like he's writing this to us, telling us not to complain about things, and he's writing it from prison. From prison, yeah, right about about to die, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yeah, no better example than that.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Like, like I guess, and he's and instead he says, Rejoice, you know, you should be rejoicing. And you're like, Well, Paul, how can you say that? And it's because he also said, I'm crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, it's Christ who lives within me.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, and he had that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, he's put Jesus at the center of the story, and I think I think it changes everything when you've got the right person, but what's this for? Who is this for?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah. So I agree.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Anything else brilliant to say?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Oh no, I feel like I'm tapped out, Dan. I mean, you did throw this at me like an hour ago.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

So is that a complaint?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Oh no, thank you so much, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Thank you for the opportunity. I forgive you. Thank you so much.

unknown 19:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Thank you so much for being a part of this. Um, thank you, Mandy, for being a part of this podcast. Thank you for joining us. And um, I hope that you'll be with us on Sunday. We're still, hey, no excuses. We're still saying we're not making excuses.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

And um, we hope to see you there. And uh, I can't wait to see who slips up and complains about something. I know. Do I get to call it? Let's turn the air conditioning off and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

That's like first service all the time. Oh, it kind of is.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

It kind of is. So, all right. Well, hey, thanks so much for being with us, and uh, thanks for being a part of another Zerman Prep Podcast.