When is it okay to leave one fellowship of believers to go an join another one? Might be good to step back and ask a more fundemental question. Is it okay? It is right? Is it what God intended when he created the church?
When I was the youth minister at the University Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas, people changed church membership as often as they changed their underwear. Or so it seemed. Someone hired a new preacher - off they would go to hear the new voice. A new youth minister? Oh, boy! My kids really like him - "he's awesome!" they would say. A new building? Wow! See ya later. That gym is something else.
We're leaving, but don't take it personal, say they. No hard feelings, we hope.
What I liked about the church here in Salt Lake was the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of Christian churches around. You had to work through your differences. You had to plow through the dry patches.
And now, 15 years later, there have been many church plants to sprout up. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for church planting. We do need more churches! The down side is this - it is now very easy to leave your current church for the newer "more exciting" model across town.
Church shopping has crept into the vocabulary of the church in Salt Lake. Maybe we're just catching up from all those years when we had few choices of where to fellowship. We've become spiritual consumers. What do you offer? Here's what we're looking for - do you have that?
So today, I raise a question: When is it okay to leave a church? IS it okay to leave a church?
I have some thoughts on the subject. I would love to hear yours.
2 comments:
I don't have answers about when it is okay. I really think it depends on the culture of the individual church.
But the "church hopping" phenomenon isn't really surprising to me. Afterall, church leaderships work really hard to get people to come to their churches. With good intentions (of reaching lost people) churches market themselves to the society at large and do little or nothing to prevent people coming from other churches.
Also, churches do not really accept people going to two different churches. So, if someone wanted to work with the praise team at one church and has good peer relationships at another, neither church would probably accept that (in my experience).
Also, in my experience, it is frustrating as a minister when people do it. But I also recognize that I was part of the problem. And I don't remember doing anything to keep people from other churches from coming to be part of my church.
Just some thoughts, no answers. Typical.
Cody -- I appreciate your thoughts. I've always struggled with the dual membership idea. The experience that I've had with dual membership is that they pick and choose what they do -- and it was always the fun stuff of both groups. To me, that's not what church is about.
But, alas, I don't have the answer either.
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