Sep 30, 2008
Why'd you quit your church?
What issues have motivated you to leave a church or small group?
How long between seeing the problems and deciding to go?
Subscribe to 22 Words
Recent Comments
Sponsors
Categories
- Arts in General (24)
- Bible (67)
- Blogging (158)
- Brevity (25)
- Constructive Criticism (271)
- Faith (217)
- Food & Drink (63)
- Language (226)
- Literature (112)
- Love (93)
- Miscellanea (308)
- Movies & TV (27)
- Music (171)
- parenting (158)
- Personal (191)
- Questions (258)
- Quotes (41)
- Recommendations (132)
- Sports (14)
- Technology (2)
- Uncategorized (9)
- Visual Art (36)
- Writing (57)
Archives
- September 2010 (9)
- August 2010 (88)
- July 2010 (116)
- June 2010 (79)
- May 2010 (89)
- April 2010 (62)
- March 2010 (21)
- February 2010 (25)
- January 2010 (32)
- December 2009 (47)
- November 2009 (63)
- October 2009 (45)
- September 2009 (40)
- August 2009 (40)
- July 2009 (40)
- June 2009 (37)
- May 2009 (47)
- April 2009 (51)
- March 2009 (40)
- February 2009 (31)
- January 2009 (44)
- December 2008 (47)
- November 2008 (54)
- October 2008 (50)
- September 2008 (41)
- August 2008 (45)
- July 2008 (51)
- June 2008 (51)
- May 2008 (66)
- April 2008 (74)
- March 2008 (71)
- February 2008 (19)
Reader Recommendations
Some of the books and music that you, the readers, have recommended here over time:
Twitter Recommendations
Theme based on Derek Punsalan's Grid Focus.
I decided to leave because when I presented them with a theological issue regarding a particular worship song (Friend of God), and their response was basically how dare I question their theology.
We had seen the issues for well over a year, and we were only going when we were scheduled to be the chaperones for the children’s nursery. When we finally found a homechurch that meets Saturday nights that we loved, we continued going to the other one until the nursery schedule was up again, and we asked not to be put on it again, then just stopped showing up altogether.
Issues were no meat for mature Christians, some stated beliefs by the pastor which could only cause people to doubt their salvation, and the fact that we didn’t want to get up on Sunday mornings for a ‘self help’ lecture.
1. Some teachings I came to believe were unbiblical (word of faith/”name it and claim it,” among other things).
2. Too much of a ‘marketing the church’ mentality – lots of money spent on advertising, not much on the poor and missions.
3. Preaching was more ‘motivational’ and not very Christ-centered.
4. Wanted to go somewhere smaller and with more of an emphasis on missions.
There were some other problems, but it took a long time and a lot of prayer for me to decide to go, because there were also a lot of really good things about the church and genuine growth/discipleship in people’s lives, and I was very connected there having served in a number of different ministries. The main tipping point, I think, was when I realized I just couldn’t continue to give my tithe there.
Active and happy serving in my current church :)
We actually just made the decision to leave our current church last Thursday after struggling with these issues for over a year
Issues
*******
No membership structure / accountability
Little focus on discipleship
Strict focus on reaching college students to the exclusion of non-students
Elevation of singing/worship over preached word (based on time spent on those areas during service)
The hardest part was the general feeling I had that the elders didn’t really want to engage me and my concerns, that it was easier to ignore them because I wasn’t in the “target audience”
1. I got married, and my church was “too baptist” for my wife, and her church was “too charismatic” for me, so we found a new one together.
2. We left that one because when I was really struggling with my parents divorce, it was easier to let me slip through the cracks than to help me, and I spiraled downward pretty quickly.
3. We didn’t intend to leave the next one, but we visited a new church plant just to be supportive, and it was the 1st time we experienced expositional preaching, so we just kept coming.
4. We were sent as missionaries and church planters.
We were unable to find a way to scale back my church responsibilities to where they were in balance with the rest of my life responsibilities.
We had several go-rounds over the past 5 years, and each time band-aid fixes only lasted a few months.
There’s something systemic wrong there, and we couldn’t seem to figure it out. It finally got to the point where we couldn’t keep waiting, and we had to go.
We start our church search this weekend.
I realized no one noticed when I was gone.
Repeating “the gospel the gospel the gospel” without ever explaining it or applying to actual life.
I felt we should leave a full two years before my husband did. As an elder, he felt committed to battle as long as he was heard. It was the first time in our marriage that we genuinely disagreed about something. So for two years I prayed for him as he battled and I prayed for God’s grace to protec our spiritually starving young family. He sustained and even blessed us, partly I’m convinced because I battled each week against my fleshly desire to question my husband’s (seeming) commitment to our church over our family. He says now he sees we should have left much sooner, but I also look back on it as a time when God blessed me when I submitted to my husband, even when I didn’t want to.
Our church struggles are embarrassingly long and we’re finally to a place of committing to a church in spite of its problems, but that said, I’m not sure we left previous churches unduly.
Church #1 – started going there when we got married. Had baby #1 and found out they don’t allow children in the service and that I would be spending all services in the nursing room and/or putting a newborn in the nursery. No. Way. Time invested: 2 years
Church #2 – this one split. We did not leave because of the split, nevertheless, after trying to help things resolve there, and seeing none, we eventually left. Time invested: 2 years
Church #3 – Shamefully, we choose this one because at the time we had three very young children and this one was closest to our house and we knew people who went there. Several years into this, the pastor’s consistent use of email forwards to begin every sermon and the lack of training coming through his preaching really wore us down. We fled for the PCA. Time invested: 3 years
Church #4 – Finally found one we loved. Then we decided to go to seminary. Time there: 8 months
Church #5 – Picked a church right away after moving to St. Louis. We’ve weathered some pretty big issues and almost walked. Recognized the pattern of fleeing and felt God asking us to stay and push through. It’s hard, but we’re committed. Time invested: 3 years so far. 3 very long years.
[...] Piper asks, “Why’d you quit your church?” over at his 22 Words Blog. Take a look at the responses he’s getting and add one yourself [...]
They sent me far, far away. To Peru in fact.
I wrestled for 3 years over whether water-immersion (baptism) was necessary for forgiveness and salvation. After my grandfather fell asleep in the Lord, I realized with certainty at his funeral that international church of christ members were not the only Christians. I left and began speaking about salvation by grace. They stopped talking to me.
There was much more Biblical conviction as well that provided the basis for my decision to leave.
We saw issues with our senior pastor a full two years before we left. He was self-willed and did not share his ministry or his life with men older or younger than him. Everything was tried, from encouragement and reproof all the way to church discipline. The pastor refused to hear any of it, and we left along with about a third of the membership and half the elder board.
It was one of the most draining, discouraging experiences of my entire life.
I had attended a small, kinda charismatic church for several years. Nice people, but had some experiences with well-meaning folks criticizing me for not being enough into the worship a few times. Did not appreciate. But that didn’t send me away.
My boyfriend at the time stopped going to church altogether (and dropped out of school, didn’t find a job, and sat around his apartment depressed for a few years – but that’s another story). That didn’t send me away.
I started thinking about leaving four years ago October. I’m politically left-leaning and had been parking my bumper-stickered car very visibly (admittedly on purpose – I wanted to see if I would be accepted if people knew my political leanings, given the grace-less things some Christians said. Eventually, in October (and, he claimed, at the request of many), he gave a sermon on issues on which Christians should base their voting. He did better than most conservative pastors who do such things – after discussing abortion, school prayer, and homosexual marriage, he devoted a full minute to caring for the poor. End of appropriate issues.
I debated a long time, prayed a long time. I didn’t feel I belonged in a church that couldn’t accept my political views, but felt connected with the people, and they were good people.
One night I went to campus fellowship and a guy who had been an elder in another church talked about his experiences discipling students my age and younger. It was very emotional. I found myself crying and didn’t know why. As I prayed, I had this feeling that what I was looking for (the connection he described) I would only find if I left my church.
I shared these thoughts with my boyfriend, and he told me he’d go back to church again if we were looking for another one together.
Getting him back to God (well, pursuing God in community, at least) was the tipping point.
40 minute drive. We started looking for a church in our community about a month after starting to see the drawbacks and missed opportunities of not being in our community. We really liked the church we were at, so it was hard to leave.
Up until very recently we attended a small church right across the street from our home. Many of the people there have been so good to us – but I found myself shaking my head every time we left a service, because..
1. The worship music was loud rock ‘n roll at 9:45 A.M. and always empty and contrived. No feeling, no emotion, nothing engaging.
2. The same about the preaching. Not Christ centered, not applicable. Just more Christian motivational-speak that never addressed our need for growth in Christ.
3. The pastor, while a nice guy, was almost never involved in any of the functions he was always trying to get us to be apart of.
We honestly haven’t been able to find a place that we can agree with theologically (Reformed charismatic) in the entire city (Wilmington, NC). We’re attending a Methodist Church now.
I actually sent a message to Desiring God ministries yesterday about this issue:)
My husband and I are praying about rather we should stay or leave our current church. We are an African American couple apart of a predominately white church. We have spoken to the pastor and the elders about the lack of racial unity in the church. We really poured our hearts out in hopes that maybe we could discuss the issue as a church. The pastors’ response was, “Well what does God want you to do with that anger or frustration” and he also suggested that maybe we start the first reformed black church here.
When we brought the issue to him again Sunday he says that we could do more to try and build relationships with members of the church. He suggested we attend a community group. We have tried that in the past but still the same result. He believes that as a church we are all struggling with selfishness and that it has nothing to do with race or culture issues.
My question is that if we don’t believe that we are completely delivered from sin altogether when we become believers then how is it that we believe the issues of race that we see daily in America are no longer issues for the church?
Why is it that so many pastors aren’t concerned with racial unity or ethnic diversity?
Is is possible for a church to be loving but not have racial unity?
One I left because there was unbiblical speaking in tongues that came out occasionally in worship music and prayer.
Another I left because it was very shallow and “bring them in so we can save em” focused, the word of God was not preached except to make a point.
after three years (only about half of which did i attend regularly because i went away to college), i decided never to go back again because continuing seemed futile and only gave me an opportunity to be bitter.
reasons: increasingly “self-help” teaching and poor exegesis (‘milk’), a very bureaucratic atmosphere, lack of accountability esp. for youth and youth leaders, and ultimately, a very strong, sad sense that the love had simply grown cold – pastorally, among members, between the congregation and Christ – and only programs were left.
it still saddens me. i became a Christian there and was there for ten years and i don’t even miss it.
My wife and I left our old church because it didn’t want us anymore, and they cut out the things that mattered the most for morketing reasons. The sermons were how to improve our lives with biblical principles, not how to depend on the death of Jesus on the cross for our salvation and victory over sin and death. We got bracelets instead of sacraments. Worship was aggressively emotional and anti-theological. Even the community had been harnessed and directed toward program recruitment. When our friends left, we had little reason to stay there. The church had been hijacked by a top-down marketing-centered approach that killed the spirit of the community and sidelined the gospel in the name of seeker-sensitivity. We left for an AMiA Anglican church.
Issues with leadership and the “sovereignty” awarded them by this particular group of churches, an over-emphasis on sin, the fostering of slander as a way of life (excused as accountability, prayer requests, and spiritual leadership of course), among other things. Sadly it took me 7 years of being there before I left.
And lest I forget, in all their adaptation for new audiences, they actually reinforced the frantic altar calls, the guilt for not getting enough “decisions,” and the determination to cause revival somehow.
I am frankly surprised my church hasn’t kicked me out yet.
I am actually trying to find a church right now and am having so much trouble. I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on how to choose a church and what issues are nonnegotiable, etc.
Left the church because of leadership issues, too much authority among a few leaders with very little accountability. This allowed them to strong arm various godly leaders and families out the door with no recourse. It also allowed said leaders to institute policies in various areas of the church that suited their felt needs (“less Word, more fun” in youth group to entice their wandering children to church).
The atmosphere was one of oppression, lack of dialogue. Any attempt to confront or discuss diverging views of theology or church direction were seen as “divisive” and were threatened into oblivion.
Currently at a church that has many strong points including very biblical preaching, but is very staid, very big, and very suburban. I have been working through dissatisfaction and have been encouraged greatly (by friends and the Spirit’s leading) to seek more intentional fellowship, a niche in which to serve whole-heartedly, and a humbly open-hearted attitude in worship. Doing so has led to greater appreciation for the good tings in the church and much more productive, helpful attitudes towards the weaknesses.
To preface this, my conviction is that leaving a church should not be an easy thing, and should rarely be done, as long as it is actually a church. I just have seen so many people leave churches over trivial issues. And if that was all it would be one thing, but they just leave in secret, without trying to reform, or even bring the issue up. It just plays into the anti-authority/ anti-submission spirit of our age.
With that said I recently switched churches a little less than two years ago over the issue of padeobaptism. Admittedly that is a secondary issue to me, so in light of my comments above let me explain why and how I left. I was going to a credobaptist church for over 10 years, and then a while ago (about a year before I left) I was convinced of padeobaptism. When I was first convinced of it, it wasn’t a real problem because it was only an abstract idea that didn’t really play out in real life for me because I had no children. So I never really made an issue out of it. Soon after that my wife got pregnant and the rubber hit the road. What would I do? We decided to still just stay and seek the elders advice about our new found conviction. After discussing this with them, with their approval we transfered our membership and had our son baptized. We had other problems with the church i the past, but none that actually forced us to go against our convictions in practice. We left in good standing and still fellowship and maintain friendships with many of our friends from that church.
Well, it’s a long story, but it boils down to parenting issues.
My family attended a reformed chuch in the area for 14 years. We finally left due to…
1. Rampant Legalism
2. Sermons that were basically theological lectures with little to no personal application.
3. Little emphasis on grace or God’s love.
4. As Driscol warned against in his sermon at the conference…in this church you needed Jesus + homeschooling, Jesus + sabbatarianism, Jesus + reformed theology, etc.
5. Impersonal pastor.
6. Uninspired worship. Only a piano was allowed and no contemporary songs or music.
7. Misfit fellow church members who could talk reformed theology, Calvinism, etc. until they were blue in the face but exhibited no love, mercy, or grace in how they lived their lives or in their interaction with others.
We started attending BBC in 2001. Piper’s sermons on Romans 8:1 completely revolutionized how I viewed my relationship with God. It was like chains falling of my hands and feet.
elders ran the church and made decisions based on needing money. shallow teaching that emphasised “evangelism” in every service. Dunn Brothers in the lobby (not really a reason for leaving, but true!). Simply, distrust in the leadership. Felt like they ran the place like a for-profit corporation.
Took us a year or so of “hanging on” before we left.
Church #1– left when I moved to college
Church #2 Left when we moved to seminary
Church #3 Left when husband was hired another church
Church #4 Left when we got fired
Church #5 Left when we got fired
Church #6 (which is the same as church #1) will leave when we get fired or God moves us
theology issues and feeling like I was getting a pep talk every Sunday instead of being taught about Jesus. I waited 4 years before I actually left. Now that I’m gone I’ve found that few churches around me are going to line up with my theology.
I have only left one church for any other reason besides relocating. I left the church due to theological differences. They believed in baptismal regeneration and I didn’t feel compelled to get baptized again in their church. They would not allow me to participate fully in church ministry and outreach, so my wife and I met with the pastor, explained why we were leaving, and attended another church.
Well I am 26 and for the first time getting ready to go threw the membership process of a church. So I can’t say why I have left a church but I can tell you why I am joining one.
1) I can hear the Gospel clearly preached every week
2) The church has a clear focus on teaching God’s word both in preaching and instruction
3) The people in the church pray for each other
4) A good mix of younger and older people in the church (not everyone in the church is in their 20′s and not everyone is in their 80′s)
5) encourages members to participate in missions and supporting missions.
their are more reason but those are my top 5, If the church move away from those I think I would try to find a new one.
Most of the churches we’ve left have been because we moved. One in particular, however, was one that went quite sour. My mom (who worked with the kids) and I (who was then a teenager leading an all-female dance team) were accused of being “out of order” and of not properly submitting to my father–he was being too wimpy, and we were being Jezebelic. We had no idea what we were doing wrong, although I think a lot of it was because my mother was chronically ill, and so of course, there had to be some reason that she hadn’t been healed yet. Despite asking, we never were told specific ways that we were sinning, but we were both removed from ministry. I got in trouble (and consequently, got my father in trouble) when I left the youth group and started going into the main service with my parents instead (with their permission), because I was tired of listening to worship on a CD and then watching a Christian movie for a sermon.
We stuck it out for more than a year, trying desperately to get our house in line. About the time we figured out that God was okay with our family, even though our pastor wasn’t, we finally removed our membership and moved on.
At my current church, I have been going for five years so far, and I absolutely love it.
It boiled down to no Biblical church governance structure (basically, pastors got full reign on making all decisions for the church — including choosing who would get to be a pastor, with a very minimal amount of accountability from the congregation).
This trickled down and started affecting the church in some very practical ways. Bad sermons were preached (severely twisting Scripture) but no one would hold the pastor accountable. Major, sometimes foolish decisions were made without any mechanism for pastors being held accountable. Lots of sermons started being preached on “obeying church leaders”, “unity”, and “loyalty” (normally good things, but a little creepy and controlling when the one preaching it is the one you’re being told to obey…and when every other sermon is about it…). It just kept snowballing. It slowly snowballed for just under a year, and quickly accelerated towards the end. After lots of prayer, it just became obvious that we needed to leave.
We did, as graciously as we knew how, and it was awful. Lots of anger aimed at us. We’d been there for several years, and met there. We still have a lot of friends there, but get a cool “you’re not in the club anymore” reception from a few. Yuck.
We’re now in a much healthier environment, and it is a breath of fresh air. :)
I left my previous church 6 years ago because the senior pastor was struggling with his faith. He could no longer pray, he could no longer read evangelical authors (only secular, Jewish, and Catholic), and he was struggling with the presence of God. He also threatened quitting, and actually resigned before recanting his resignation.
I was on the church board, and I stipulated that, while protecting him in hopes of spiritual recovery, the board would have to share oversight of the church with him. Enraged, he mobilized the rest of the board to vote me off. It was a pretty abusive couple of years, as we did not leave the church immediately, understanding that God had not yet called us away.
I hoped that the pattern of abuse would not spread to others while I remained, but unfortunately, another friend was also targeted by this enraged and lost man.
When we did move on, we eventually were each ordained elders at Manhattan churches with which some of you might be familiar.
In these dark years, I learned a lot about forgiveness and peacemaking. I also learned a lot about biblical polity and leadership qualifications.
Unfortunately, the pastor has continued to pastor and to teach in a NY-area seminary. It is sad that the streets of New York are sometimes safer than inside some of its church buildings.
About 5 years ago, I left the church I had spent most of my life attending with my family. It was a pentecostal, Indian church. Often it seemed sermons were more “rah! rah! be a good Indian” as opposed to preaching from Scripture.
Our thumbs down came when ‘Deal Or No Deal’ video clips were played for two months prior to the sermon. Also, the messages were 100% topical instead of going through books of the Bible.
I became a Calvinist and a credobaptist. Those two were at odds with the United Methodists.
Four years of feeling betrayed by leadership is what did it to me. The church I grew up in was hyper-dispensational and came out of the Brethren tradition which meant that they were essentially complemenchauvinists, and the sermons were always one of three things – guilt-inducers, defenses of dispensationalism, or a lengthy explanation of why _______ was a heretic.
Eventually it just wore me out to the point that I was ready to give up on Christianity entirely. Thankfully, God used L’Abri, the books of Francis Schaeffer, and a few good friends to restore my faith in Christianity. But I went 19 years in the church without ever really being pastored by anyone or hearing the Gospel preached to Christians before I finally started to experience both of those things through Reformed University Fellowship and the ministry of a PCA church here in Lincoln.
The church leadership was too impersonal and judgmental of those who didn’t agree with legalistic ideas. Only ministered to whom they felt worthy to minister to.
The worship was too uninspired, only allowed Psalms and Hymns. No worship leader and no specials allowed.
Sermons where too dry and too long and did not apply to real life, nor did they inspire.
Church #1: I became convinced of “reformed soteriology” during my time attending this church. I didn’t learn it from the church, but rather through your dad’s sermons that I found online. Upon growing, I came to see that the pastor of that church believed in the “free-grace” theology taught by Zane Hodges. After going nuts for two years, and after many discussions with the pastor and elders….we left to join church #2.
Church #2 was actually kinda 2 churches. We attended a PCA church for about 6 weeks before there was a split. We left with the others to plant a new PCA church. After a year, we found that the pastor really had some serious issues with your dad and baptistsin general. Also, his teaching was very weak and and more similar to some blend of emergent/evangelical. There were so many issues. I finally had a wonderful conversation with one of the elders. Word got out to the pastor and he basically blew a gasket with me. At that point I sadly decided that these issues were not up for discussion and that the church would be hurt if we stayed…so we left…
Now we are at church #3. Been there for 1.5 years. Unbelievably, I’m now southern baptist. We love our pastor (who is reformed), but the church is far from reformed, but slowly improving. We have a good core group of like minded friends in the church whom we fellowship with. It’s far from our ideal church, but we aren’t planning on going anywhere.
It’s a long story.
I have left 2 churches.
1- When I became a Christian I attended a UMC only to figure out in week 2, as Pastor Linda preached about acceptance using the movie “The Breakfast Club” and no – I’m not kidding – that there were problems. I met with her and asked if she believed that Jesus was the only way to Heaven and she emphatically said “no – that is far to narrow.”
2- From there I went to a great church that preached the gospel and a church in which I grew a lot in my walk with the Lord. The only challenge was, every sermon and I mean every sermon, was about the return of Christ. I stayed there for years but felt it was time to move on.
3- I’ve been at my current church home for 15 years and I could not imagine ever leaving, unless my husband (who is one of the pastors) did a church plant. :-)
skimming the comments (who are clearly a skewed sample because of the question being asked), i wonder how many have NEVER “quit” a church on any terms other than moving away for college/work or going to minister elsewhere. i wonder if it’s a lot or a little.
[...] Abraham Piper asked his readers to share why they left their churches. You can read their answers here. « Chasing Forgiveness [...]
But … 7 years. (Sigh) If Jacob could do it for Laban … I had no interest in church hopping. Someday we’ll have to have a Town Hall meeting again.
In response to Carissa,
I’m one who’s never left the church – been here all my life, and it just keeps getting better and better :-) (I’m 26 now)
It is so liberating to see this many people talking freely about what is usually such a “shunned” practice. Thank you for bringing up this topic!
I firmly believe that just as God leads certain people to certain churches, He also leads them away. Thus, leaving a church shouldn’t always be seen as a “terrible” thing…especially if the person or family leaving is not necessarily leaving the Body of Christ and the Christian faith, but is just choosing to worship and serve as part of a different church.
We made the very difficult decision to leave our church a few months ago due to a whole slew of different reasons…more than I could list here…but the whole list basically boils down to what we felt were differences of opinion regarding the general direction of the church. We were very involved in several aspects of leadership at our church and made our decision based on accurate first-hand information and also much prayer regarding the direction for our young family at this crucial point in our lives.
It is interesting that your question references “quitting a church” because this is exactly what I have struggled with the most. I still have feelings of guilt because “quitting” is just not me…it is not who I am…and I often feel like I didn’t perservere or I failed somehow in my service at our church.
Anyway, all that to say, I trust we made the right decision, but it makes it all the more difficult when others do not view our choice as following God’s leading after much prayer and careful consideration, but merely throwing in the towel. and calling it quits
As a pastor, the question that immediately springs to mind is, “And what steps did you leave your church…?”
It’s good to see my story echoed in the words of others. I’m glad I’m not alone.
church 1: Grew up there. When I went to college and had to stop being so involved, it seemed that people stopped caring about me. There was no place for me to fit as a college student except as youth staff, and youth staff is not something I wanted to do. I also had problems with the theology, and with people not thinking about what they believed there. It was very closed to questioning…and as college students we’re taught to question everything.
church 2: it was 45 minutes away and I couldn’t be involved like I should there. Love and community were genuine but teaching was somewhat shallow. Things seemed targeted towards young marrieds, and I am a single college kid who will not be married for a very long time (going to grad school for my Ph.D. next year). There were very few college kids there too. Our small group dwindled and finally died.
church 3: I attended for three months and was beginning to get involved, and was taking steps towards membership. I missed one Sunday because I was out of town, and the following week the pastor wasn’t there and no one said anything about it. I continued going for a month and still guest speakers every week with Pastor nowhere to be found. Frustrated with the lack of openness and consistency, I left.
church 4: this summer I lived at Virginia Tech and attended New Life Christian Fellowship, and it was one of the best church experiences ever. Even only being there a short time, people totally adopted my roommate and I. Teaching was good, community was awesome. Then, I had to move back here for school.
Now at church 5. So far so good. Then the church search starts all over again when I move away for grad school next fall.
I hate the intense loneliness that comes with being churchless and I’m not looking forward to having to find another one so shortly.
Interesting post. Reminds me of a similar post by John MacArthur over on Pulpit Magazine titled “When to Leave Your Church”. In it, Dr. MacArthur gives the following as reasons when it would be appropriate to leave your church:
If heresy on some fundamental truth is being taught from the pulpit (Gal. 1:7-9).
If the leaders of the church tolerate seriously errant doctrine from any who are given teaching authority in the fellowship (Rom. 16:17).
If the church is characterized by a wanton disregard for Scripture, such as a refusal to discipline members who are sinning blatantly (1 Cor. 5:1-7).
If unholy living is tolerated in the church (1 Cor. 5:9-11).
If the church is seriously out of step with the biblical pattern for the church (2 Thess. 3:6, 14).
If the church is marked by gross hypocrisy, giving lip service to biblical Christianity but refusing to acknowledge its true power (2 Tim. 3:5).
I accepted Christ in my current church 10 years ago, and have been there ever since, moving from the college student phase, to young married, to young family. Our church has been multi-generational, and has honestly tried to connect with people in all/most seasons of life. Our church is not perfect, but we’re committed to helping our church be the best it can be – encouraging each other to follow Christ and honor Him.
I’d sooner lop off a limb.
I’m a Messianic Jew who got saved during the Jesus Movement in 1975. My first place of worship was an Orthodox Presbyterian Church where I got an excellent bible education and a good grounding in Calvinistic theology. I was very happy there until one of the elders told me that Corrie ten Boom should be taken out and shot for being charismatic. I personally had no opinion on that issue at that time, but I knew that attitude wasn’t correct.
At the same time, I discovered Messianic Judaism and joined a Messianic congregation where I remained for 25 years. I served in a number of capacities, primarily in children’s ministries, and worked for an associated larger international ministry, often under my own spiritual leader. During that time, I discovered that person to be an autocratic and incompetent leader. I watched countless people leave the congregation because, when hard times came into their lives, the leadership abandoned them. The leadership was filled with fear over losing money and/or wealthy members. And I waited and prayed for many years, even though I was pleading with G-d to let me leave. Finally, the leadership did something so egregious that even G-d said, “Enough,” and let me leave.
From there I attended a Vineyard congregation which I loved and whose pastor and congregation helped me to heal from my previous experience. I left there to help found a new Messianic congregation of which I am still a part.
I grew up in a church in which the gospel was not preached clearly. I taught sunday school & bible class as a non-Christian & it wasn’t untill I was 18 that I fell in with a group of young Christians who loved being taught, loved Jesus & explained the Gospel.
After Christ redeemed me I continued to teach Bible class at the church but attend a different church for about a year, even though I had asked them to find a replacement – finally when I posted my plans for the year aheads Bible class (examining the churches in Revelation) they swiftly got another teacher & let me know I was free to depart fully.
Which was a relief as I was free to persue better, clearer teaching.
Church #1 – changed their name and my college made me leave.
Church #2 – changed their name and my college made me leave.
Church #3 – hasn’t changed their name yet, after 8 years, and I’m out of college now, so I wouldn’t leave anyway!
i left when the pastor of our small charismatic church fell in love with the Bible and reformed theology and began preaching it and teaching it unapologetically. after realizing the square peg-round hole theory rings true and foreseeing a lifetime of banging his head against a brick wall – he helped them search for a new pastor and left.
did i mention – i was the pastor.
Erroneous preaching by a new pastor:
1-God loves the sinner but hates sin
2-Sin happens when your self esteem is too low and you aren’t focusing on how much God values you
3-God is reactive in dealing with us because of our free will.
After every sermon, my husband would sit down and write a paper correcting various theological errors. Finally, after much prayer and after no efforts were made to correct some of the errors, we left. I still feel burdened for that flock because that kind of preaching is not sustaining the families who are facing fierce trials. There is not much choice in the way of churches where we live but we felt that preaching was the most important factor in determining which church we attend.
Big issue. We left our church after seven years because 98% of the sermons from our one pastor were evangelical. But then, don’t we want to see the lost be saved? To focus almost entirely on salvation, while the saved members and their families are facing huge issues with no practical, biblical teaching is sad. Good people,alot of family there, so it was a very hard decision to make. Any one have any pointers?
This is a great post and, while reading through the comments, it’s been interesting to read reasons that people state for leaving a group. This point in my life, I’ve only left due to a move or for ministry reasons (went to a church to serve as youth minister). My wife and I have had several conversations about our current church, but I have yet to see/come across a reason to leave a body apart from apostasy. I figure that no body is perfect and there’s no point in chasing preachers since they’re (most likely) temporary. We need to be a part of the body, seek to follow Christ, and seek to serve and/or fix what needs serving/fixing, right?
I was a member of a SBC church for 20 years. I was also a deacon and very active on committees, etc.
Then 6 years ago God saved me!
Immediately, I realized that many, many of the members of the church were not saved and the true gospel was not being preached. The leadership claimed to preach the gospel but it was mainly “walk down front at 11:55 and get saved”.
After 5 years of “sovereign discipleship” with God leading me through many painful realizations we left the church to take part in a wonderful church plant.
The final straw was when I was told “NOT” to use anymore John Piper materials to teach with.
jb-
Sorry I don’t have the link to this (I’ll share it if I find it), but D.A. Carson talks about this:
“At the same time, I worry about Christians who focus their attention so narrowly on getting people “saved” that they care little about doing good to all people, even if especially to the household of God. Getting this right is not easy, and inevitably priorities will shift a little in various parts of the world, under various regimes. Part of the complexity of the discussion, I think, is bound up with what the church as church is responsible for, and what Christians as Christians are responsible for: I have argued that failure to make this distinction tends to lead toward sad conclusions.”
Again, I’ll try to find the link…
Chris D’s church history:
I kept going to the church I grew up in until I started teaching CCD at a school where I also taught during the week. I thought it was important for the kids to see that church was important to their teacher, so I went to their church (same denomination).
When the 4th graders I taught told me that their 6th grade siblings’ teachers were telling them things in the Bible didn’t really happen, I told them not to worry, they could trust the Bible even though some people might be so amazed at the things God does that they have trouble believing it (My own childhood class had been told by a teacher in 3rd grade that the main events of the Bible were myths–the great Flood in Genesis, for example–but I didn’t buy it). When I mentioned this to one of my colleagues, she said that Father _________ did NOT want it taught literally.
If I had not been a teacher I may have just kept attending my childhood church and believing what I knew to be true, but since I was a teacher, I was put into the dilemma of not being able to teach things the way they wanted it taught, so I joined a church that taught that the Bible IS true in my early 20′s.
I met my husband there and we stayed at that church 15 years before having to move because of a job change.
We have been in the church we moved to (same Bible believing denomination) for the entire 8 years that we’ve lived here.
I’d have to say that the first 14 years in the Bible believing churches were my happy spiritual childhood–no conflicts, very secure.
The last nine years have been more like spiritual adolescence with lots of ups and downs and having to deal with a lot of issues people bring up. At first we stayed in our church because no matter what any of the people there said or did (and there are plenty who are VERY nice, but some are not–although probably not deliberately mean) we knew our pastors were ROCK SOLID in teaching the Bible and that meant the most to us and for our children.
Often it feels like we just don’t fit in at our church and have considered going elsewhere despite the positive things said above, but John Piper’s message on Charles Simeon has convinced me that I shouldn’t leave a church just because I think the people there don’t like me very much. I mean, no one’s locking us out of the pews or anything like what Simeon went through, but it can be hard to move after being in one place for so long. Also, John Piper once made a point to say that although he loved Minneapolis, it didn’t feel like his home in NC did, but that even if he went back there, it wouldn’t be the same. Now I don’t feel so sorry for myself because it’s so different here.
So basically it takes false teaching or being forced to change for something like a new job to get us to leave a church.
Recently (in Dec ’07) we left our church due to our Reformed theology. We were publicly ridiculed for our beliefs . Our adult daughter, who was a teacher at the church school, was called a tare amongst the wheat. The church had basically become a mouth piece for the “Sword of the Lord” types, sermons became story time with the pastor always being the hero. The legalism was so rampant, that Godly believers were declared unfit for God if they (men, not women) had hair on their face..etc..
We have since planted a reformed church in a small town to the glory of the Lord.
1. Willow Creek mania
2. Purpose Driven mania.
3. Program driven.
4. Money driven.
5. Numbers driven.
All of the above helped to lead to the preaching of sermons directly from #1 and #2 taken off of the internet because the Pastor was #3, #4 and #5 and didn’t spend the proper time in the Word.
All this just depresses me.
Over the past 25 years, we (always active in staff positions, music, Bible teaching, hubby elder, etc.) have left churches because:
1) pastor had a habit of lying about people and his own discipline; when he began lying about me (on staff) knew we had to get away
2) (2nd church) left the area and moved away knowing there were problems; that pastor ended up in prison for embezzling
3rd church) in 1990′s, was active part of worship team; hubby refused to continue attending because of manipulation and cruelty shown toward me by senior pastor so we moved to another church to recover. That pastor ended up in prison after being found guilty of criminal sexual assault against another worship team member.
Each of these churches/pastors had established reputations in their respective communities as being doctrinally conservative, salvation preaching, “growing up into Christ” type Bible teaching.
It has made me grateful that Jesus says that HE builds the church.
We left when, at a youth retreat, our high school daughter was told by one of our founding pastors to commit to our church for the rest of her life unless one of the elders gave her permission to go to another church, (but only one in their association of churches). She didn’t commit. She told us about the request. We listened to the tape of the message and talked with the pastor.
That was the final straw, but there had been other “red flags”. Like the first time we went there the pastor likened the women on the worship team to some Proverb about wisdom sending out maidens. Some seeker idea that vaguely implied the women were up front to attract unsaved men so they would hear the message. Or, the time the pastor told the congregation we were his (the pastor’s) bride.
We stayed because we knew a lot of Christians who went to this church, we are pretty patient people, we don’t like confrontation, we were good friends of several of the pastors and their families, we were heavily involved in the ministries, we desired to be committed to the local church…
I guess we “rationalized” that the pastors just “misspoke”. But, then we Googled and found our association on cult watch lists and found a 13 page statement of error the association had written.
We left this after 10 years.
.
I posted in this list along with the rest of you, but now reading it hurts my heart.
I can’t even really explain why.
I just hate that the church is in such a state that we all have these horror stories about pain, and rejection, and disappointment.
“And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, and the clouds be rolled back as a scroll… the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend… even so, it is well with my soul!”
It IS discouraging to hear the horror stories, but we must remember that all of the bad things are not bunched together like this normally (although some do seem to have suffered through more than their share of bad experiences).
We could probably write numerous more blessings that we have received from our churches. When my husband was called for a kidney transplant, we had to drive two hours to the hospital, and one of our pastors heard about it and showed up with another person from our church who was not even a close friend of ours at the time just 10 minutes after we got to the hospital and stayed with us for two days. When he was out of work for three months recovering, our church paid some of our bills. Pastors and people from our church have sat with us and numerous others when we were sick or hurt in accidents. They have spent their vacation time in third world countries caring for people.
Often the hurts and hardships stand out more in our minds, and the press rarely reports on the good things that the church has done for centuries and centuries. It is easier for them to keep pointing to the Crusades than to remember the ten Booms, the Brainerds and others who have given their lives to serve others and who have modeled Christian love so beautifully.
When we get discouraged and feel like giving up on churches, we have to remember that Jesus died for the church, knowing that it would not be perfect, and that at times it would seem to be totally missing the mission.
I love the verses from 1 Thessalonians 4 which tell us to live to please God and to love others more and more. If we keep looking we will find there are many churches that are doing that.
I’m disappointed, too, that there are so many people putting down precious doctrines, teaching unbiblical things, and doing other things that hurt people, but I’m also thankful that there will also always be John PIpers, Albert Mohlers, Wayde Wilsons, and other faithful pastors and congregations who are staying true to God’s Word and leading God’s people with integrity. I’m thankful that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church.
I had a later thought (having posted earlier) that has been helpful to me over the years and that is simply this: grace will always provide the necessary flexibility and strength for me so that I do not have to allow my life to become a distorted monument to the worst things that have happened to me. In other words, present life does not have to memorialize the pain that has occurred in the churches (or anywhere else).
I left my last church because it split. The pastor, whose teaching was (and still is) firmly rooted in the foundation of God’s word, stepped down and I needed a new teacher. With my new teacher came a new church family I adore and I am thankful God made things very clear to me as to which direction I should go. There are no hard feelings between myself and those that still attend the church I left and I feel I will be able to continue to grow with my new church family.
I left my Messianic Congregation in 1997 as what happened was the last straw for me.
I grew up in a messianic home where my mother would take us to church as my father was agnostic. Mom left the first church because of disagreements then went to a Charismatic one. They were horrible {Long story} so we left. Then she went to another church to which she has been a member for a long time.
I’ve been spiritually abused by every Pastor but one all my life so when I wanted to look into my Jewish background I thought Messianic was the way to go and my husband agreed. Boy was I wrong. I was happy there for awhile till I noticed things were out of whack and it was more like a cult. The so called Rabbi’s wife is mentally unbalanced and when a confidential remark I had said to my husband was being disused between the Rabbi & my Husband was found out by his wife, well the wife tried to break up my relationship with my sister who was in the congregation and she got found out, BUT her husband the Rabbi is to whipped to stand up to her. I’ll never go back to a church again as I can’t trust anyone that calls themselves a believer.
The national leadership decided making homosexuals comfortable was more important than teaching the Bible.
I grew up evangelical, and when I revealed to a few people (including my pastor) I was struggling with homosexuality, I was totally rejected and news of my “struggles” were disseminated through “prayer chains” within the week.
Ultimately, I decided that if God existed, he probably didn’t want me to kill myself, so I left the evangelical church and joined an affirming episcopal congregation. It’s not perfect, but the day I married my wife was one of the happiest of my life.