Almost all Christians, even the ones who love their churches, occasionally fantasize about changing churches. Maybe it's the music that's bothering you. Or the preaching. Or maybe the leadership has made some decisions you didn't like, you don't have many friends/connections, you have heard of another church close to you, etc, etc. I would say that occasionally having these thoughts are pretty normal. I think that deciding to leave (or stay) at your church is a personal decision that everyone needs to consider carefully and that judging another for their reasons is not a good use of our time.
I was talking to an old friend the other day and she confided to me that she was wanting to change her church. She'd grown up in that church and was looking for a change. So I asked her when she was leaving? She told me that her and her husband were going to do it when they moved to another community as she wanted the church move to look natural. I asked her why she didn't just tell them that her and her husband simply felt like going to a new church. She responded that she didn't want to offend or hurt the people in her church. She had friends there and she wanted to keep them. This line of thinking intrigued me. Would she really wait until moving to another town to change churches because she didn't want to tell her church the truth? The answer was yes.
I gave her my opinion (and told her that I was going to blog about this subject). I told her that I think she should just be honest (diplomatic and sensitive, but still honest) with those in her current church. Yes, just tell people the truth! You feel like a change. There is nothing evil about this. Yes, people might challenge you on it, complain, tell you that you "abandoning" them/the church, heap guilt on you. What does it matter? "Protecting" them from the truth doesn't help the church get better/change, or alleviate your conscience (since you are passively deceiving them), or anything else that's really positive. All it does is avoid stuff, something we Christians do too well. Jesus said "the truth shall set you free." I believe this. So what if people "talk" a little bit? Maybe that would be good for the community. No where in the Bible does it say you have to go to the same church for your whole life and that you are bad person if you choose to attend another. Sometimes we need to exercise our freedom to choose (and let others do the same).
Anyway, even though this is my opinion, it may not always be the right choice, but most of the time it is. Diplomatically told truth is always better then passive deception. There are two terrible feelings when it comes to church:
1. Not having one.
2. Not feeling like you can leave the one you're in.
Anyway, that's my two cents. What's yours?
May Light increase!
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7 comments:
Mark, don't you think that this whole conversation stems from a misunderstanding about what church really is. I commented to my dad that we were "doing" church at our house this week, and he said "you can't verbalize a noun." He said, you can't "do" a building. My response was that you can do community, you can voluntarily join yourselves up with other believers to be the body of Christ to others and to eachother. I think about Bob's trip to India, where some remote villages have less than 10 Christians in them, they hang onto one another for dear life, they "do" church to be the little body of Christ they can to one another. Attendance is not driven by a band with drums, an eloquent speaker, a beautiful building...it's driven out of necessity because it's there ONLY link to a spiritual community.
What a luxury we have here in Canada to connect with the body of Christ any day of the week in the absence of persecution or excommunitcation.
Yah, it's slightly off topic, all that to say, is why does it matter where? It's with Whom, that matters.
Jacquie
Hey Jacquie, I don't disagree with you.
I do think it's common to think about leaving your church though, whether it's for external reasons (like the music) or internal ones (God's leading?) of both. Some would say that to leave your church for something as simple as say the style of music is shallow, but what if that music is distracting you from worship and music is your main pathway to experiencing God? What also complicates things is that some parishioners see someone leave their community and they outright panic! No wonder some people are so scared of leaving . . .
Yes there does come a time but I do think that people make that time happen quicker than it should.
I'm thrilled that I had the chance to help plant the church of our dreams... ha. But not all do.
Hey Dave, thanks for stopping in. I checked out your church's web site, it looks pretty cool. I'm curious, how did you stumble upon my blog?
The issue I see with your comment (which I have heard fairly often) is that "people" is actually made up of lots of individuals and everyone has their own individual reasons for changing churches. And even if you think you know a person's reasons, you might not really know them (or at least fully). As a church planter you know the incredible dedication someone can have to a community and once you have that dedication it's difficult to really empathize with someone who truly desires a change (at least I have difficulty!). We can't understand it and so we question their dedication, spirituality, maturity, steadfastness, etc. I have done it and I guess most of us out there have as well. How often do we just smile, wish someone well, tell them we'll miss them, and bless them as they go?
No wonder people don't want to leave - we don't make it easy for them. In a hundred subtle ways we give subtle messages to those departing - and many of them are wrapped up in our own sense of loss and insecurity. If you have ever left a church "unnaturally" you are familiar with what I mean.
We when we left the church we were attending a couple of years ago we actually wrote a letter to those in leadership explaining why we left. It went unnoticed for the most part, though we received some criticism. But our leaving happened at the crossroads of personal issues and issues within the church itself, so at that time our leaving wasn't all that unexpected or unusual.
By the way, I echo Jacquie's thoughts for the most part. I'm wondering if the implied elements of this question are at issue, rather than the obvious question itself.
With no disrespect intended to Dave or his church, neither of whom I know, I wonder if this notion of "the church of our/my dreams" isn't part of the problem? We tend to get consumeristic about church---we pick and choose what we want, rather than committing to worship with and serve a local body of believers through thick and thin.
I realize this is easier said than done---I don't know, for intance, how I will feel about this if the situation in our church would go bad. But the choice Dixie and I made when we became members here was that we would serve and worship at this church, regardless of the fact that there were few, if any, other families with children the age of ours, etc. etc. etc.
Not to hijack this conversation or toot my own horn, of course.
PS. There are, of course, good reasons to leave a church, such as heretical teaching.
As someone who attended the same church for most of my life, I can see both points of view.
The one that I really hold to though, is one of commitment. If everyone just left because they felt like it, who would run the church? Who could we trust to be responsible for anything if there was no sense of commitment.
No, I don't always appreciate everything about my church, and the worship team has it's off days, but I love the people, and THAT is the church. No one is perfect, no church service is perfect, but we all work together.
It actually drives me NUTS in summer when half the church thinks it's ok to miss every Sunday, just because it's summer. That lack of commitment seriously bothers me.
I have seen our church go through way too many issues in my life, and it's lack of commitment that throws everything off. I've seen our church go from around 100 people, down to about 30 people, and now over 200.
I also think that those who can leave a church so easily will never find a church home. They will never be satisfied, and will continue to church hop.
To be honest... i can't remember how I found your blog! Ha! But it's good.
And you know... I get changing churches. I'm just saying that a disturbing number of Christians are Me Monsters and are often very High Maintenance Low Impact... and leave churches for petty reasons and it happens easily because they are not working alongside the vision/goal of the house.
If new visions... purposes etc don't resonate of course don't bang your head against the wall forever... but I'd say that the non commitment level leads to some handicapped ministries that have transient workers
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