Turn and face the strain

I'm doing something Sunday that is perhaps the most dangerous thing I have to do on a regular basis: changing the order of service.  I'm not talking about a drastic or permanent change, just adjusting a few things to incorporate a little Thanksgiving into our worship.  We will be inviting people to bring things forward for the offering and for a food collection rather than passing the offering plates.   Like I said, it's not major surgery, but it produces anxiety nonetheless.  I am anticipating complaints, and perhaps that's the real issue: my own anticipation of complaints.
It's a major gumption drain.
Those of you who are not intimately acquainted with the life of a spiritual community probably have no idea how much complaining God's children actually get up to.  It made it into the Bible though, in many places, notably in the story of the Exodus when the people grumbled and murmured against Moses.  Jesus also had his share of people at the edge of the crowds griping about his behavior, his teachings, his followers, even his dinner company.
The anxiety I feel about minor changes, and the likely complaints I will hear about them, goes a long way towards explaining why the church changes so slowly, and usually only out of absolute necessity.  From a leader's perspective, peace and the status quo is a good thing, it usually means the grumbling and murmuring is at a minimum and the machine is running smoothly.  Unless you need to change in order to pursue a vision there is very little motivation to rock the boat.  The assumption of leaders, particularly church leaders, is that people don't like to change and that if you're going to get them to change you're going to have to have a pretty compelling reason.
Diversity and variety are not generally compelling reasons.
It may come as a surprise to some, but people who are trying to lead generally don't like becoming the complaint department.  That's why most CEO's have several tiers of yes and no men insulating them from customers and low level employees.  Pastors have no such luxury, at least I don't.
I'm not pointing fingers here.  I don't think any of the churches I have served are particularly unusual in their general level of grumbling, in fact, if I judge by purely anecdotal evidence from colleagues, they may actually have slightly below average levels of malcontent.  The point is that, for change to be worth the effort, it had better be important.
Even minor grumbling has a profound effect on pastoral leaders.  After all we care about the people and the organization we are serving, and we tend to take criticism sort of personally.  For instance, you may think that saying the sermon is too long is a constructive criticism, but what it sounds like is "I don't care what you think or what you're trying to teach me, there's a football game coming on in half an hour and that's way more important than the worship service you have spent the week putting together." You may think that criticizing the hymn selection or the music in general, is just exercising your God given right to voice an opinion, but the fact of the matter is that someone selected, prepared and led that music, and in doing so they are giving glory to God.
So much of the complaining and strife is founded on a consumerist mentality that serves us well when dealing with economic realities like where to buy a car.  With so many different styles, sizes and shapes of church out there, how can we not look at church the same way?
How indeed.  It's destroying congregations in this country much faster than any sinister secular agenda or godless political cabal.  The enemy has found his weapons of choice, and we are them.
Think before you grumble.