10 Things to Do Before Leaving Your Church
Jeffrey Johnson is the author of The Church series, a pastor at Grace Bible Church and the president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, a community where he also resides with his wife Letha and their four children.
Is it ever right to leave your church? “Abandon ship!” should be the council given to any Christian remaining in a church that compromises the essential truths of the gospel and accepts deviant lifestyles. Run and don’t look back! Flee, lest you, too, take part in their condemnation. In such situations, there is no hesitation to give such counsel.
We should be looking for a new church if we were part of a seeker-sensitive and man-centered church that is more worried about marketing itself to the world than pleasing God and teaching the truth. We should all seek to find the best church possible—this is our soul we are talking about—not to mention the souls of our spouses and our children.
Yet, the question of when we should leave a church is not always easy to answer. In fact, in many cases, it is incredibly difficult. Just as it is unwise to give counsel without hearing both sides of the story, it is unwise to advise someone to leave a church without having sufficient information about the situation. This is the danger of writing an article on when it’s time to leave your church. Generic counsel may be broadly applicable, but such counsel is often used in ways not originally intended. And when people already have their minds made about a matter, such counsel will often be fitted to agree with their decision.
Because of these dangers, it is often best to rephrase the question. Rather than asking, “When should we leave a church?” It may be better to ask, “How should we leave a church?” Perhaps if we can’t leave a church in the right way, it would be more pleasing to God that we not leave at all. Because leaving a church shouldn’t be done lightly, there are some things we should ask ourselves before making such a decision. I am sure there are more questions we should ask ourselves, but here are ten we should seek to honestly answer before deciding to walk away:
1. Have You Studied the Marks of a Healthy Church?
Just as many professing Christians choose to join a church for the wrong reasons, many professing Christians choose to leave for the wrong reasons. I suppose churches seeking to attract people with coffee and other such amenities should not be too surprised when those same people leave because they are no longer happy with these amenities. Although I have never heard of anyone leaving a church because they didn’t serve the right brand of coffee, I have heard of people leaving churches because they didn’t have the desired age-related ministry or because the church didn’t have a large enough population of singles. It is tragic that people join and leave churches based on non-biblical issues. It is even more tragic when people leave a healthy church over a non-biblical issue, only to join an unhealthy church because they serve better coffee. They may enjoy the larger “community,” but they fail to realize they traded in doctrinal preaching for feel-good motivational speeches. We should, however, not evaluate our churches on what is important to us, but rather what is important to God.
My advice to anyone thinking about leaving a church is for them to first study what makes a healthy church. Know Scripture well enough to answer basic questions such as:
What is the church?
What is the mission and purpose of the church?
How is the church to be governed?
What are my responsibilities to a local church?
How is the church to worship God?
The answers to the questions will help properly evaluate our individual churches. They will also help prevent us from leaving a church for the wrong reasons. To help guide you in your study of ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church), I recommend Mark Dever’s book, 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and my book, The Church: Her Nature, Authority, Purpose, and Worship.
2. Have You Committed to Being Active and Faithful Members?
Before leaving a church, make sure it is not because you have a low view of church membership. I am afraid the reason many people jump from one church to the next every few years is due to a lack of commitment. Many view the church as they do their favorite restaurant—go in, be fed, and go out with no commitment.
We must realize that for those who claim to be followers of Christ, church membership is mandatory. We are commanded to obey our elders (Heb. 13:17), not forsake the local assembly (Heb. 10:25), and to come together with the saints to observe the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:20). We are also taught by Scripture how to behave in the household of God, which is the church (1 Tim. 3:14-15).
Disobedience to these commands is not an option for the Christian. Under normal circumstances, we are obligated to join a church, and afterward, be active and faithful to that church. Believers are instructed by God to carry out certain responsibilities in the church. The question for believers is not if we will commit to a church, but which church will we commit to serve?
From what I have observed, some people are quick to leave a church because they don’t mind remaining between churches for an indefinite amount of time. Staying home and listening to sermons online week after week is not something they have a problem doing. The Puritans, however, believed Christians should never not be a member of a church, even for a short period of time. For instance, when members moved away from Bedford to another location, John Bunyan continued pastoring and overseeing them until they officially joined a new congregation.
Such commitment to church membership is rare these days. It seems the less committed someone is to church membership, the easier it is for them to leave a church. But we are all called to be a faithful and committed member of a local body. We aren’t given the liberty to think of church membership as optional.
Therefore, before leaving a church, examine your level of commitment to the local church.
Is church membership important to you?
Have you been active and faithful to the church?
Have you been involved in the life of the church?
If not, the church may not be the problem. Try remaining married with a low view of commitment. Imagine the misery of a relationship in which one person is unwilling to overlook flaws or work through disagreements. Commitment is important for church membership and for marriage. In short, before deciding to leave a church, make sure you don’t have a sinfully low view of membership.
3. Have You Made Sure You Don’t Have a Submission Problem?
No one, I assume, likes to admit they have a submission problem. But, practically speaking, we can admit it is not always easy to submit. It is one thing to submit to things we like, but it’s not so fun submitting to things we don’t like. I once heard of an older man who was the only voice of opposition of the church buying a new piano. He thought the church’s money could be spent more wisely elsewhere. Under the circumstances, he may have been right in his judgment. But, after the church had decided to move forward with the purchase, rather than getting angry and leaving, he stood up and pulled out some cash and was the first to financially contribute to the new piano. This was because he knew how to submit to decisions he didn’t like. This was because he viewed the unity of the church as something more important than such decisions.
Though our consciences are bound to the Word of God alone, it is important for us to learn to submit to things we don’t always agree with—such as the church buying a new piano. It takes more grace when we submit to what we deem as unwise than it does when we get what we want. We should expect God to test us in such matters.
Nevertheless, church membership can be hard because it requires submission. We are called to submit to our elders and to one another. Joining a church, which is required for believers, is an act of submission. We are submitting to be held accountable. We are submitting to the oversight of the church over our lives. We are submitting to being monitored and even disciplined by our church family—by people who know and love us. Thus, we should ask ourselves before we make the decision to leave a church, do we have a submission problem?
4. Have You Endeavored to Do Your Best to Keep the Unity of the Faith?
One of the main responsibilities of church membership is to do all that we can, within our own power, to maintain the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). This begins with guarding our minds and hearts against selfishness and an unloving spirit. Of course, it is easy for us to be blind to our own selfishness. And we don’t call our aversion to Ms. Smith and our frustration with pastor Rick a lack of love for them. But the love that covers a multiple of sins in others is just not as strong as the love of self that makes it easy for us to overlook our own shortcomings.
Often before people leave a church physically, they have left mentally. It’s hard to justify leaving a church for a single reason, especially if that reason is small. When small and unchecked dissatisfactions arise within our hearts, it becomes easy for us to start viewing everything negatively. This attitude is a failure on our part to endeavor to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Once we fail to maintain the unity of the Spirit in our hearts and minds, it becomes easy for us to find fault everywhere until we have built an overwhelming case that pushes us to leave for good.
Yet, this may have been prevented if only we had obeyed the Scriptures by doing our best to walk in love, humility, and forgiveness (1 Cor. 13). Before leaving a church family, ask:
Have I done my best to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?
Have I walked in love and humility?
Have I given people the benefit of the doubt?
Am I holding resentment in my heart?
5. Have You Considered That You May Be the Voice of Change?
Every church has shortcomings, blind spots, and problems. Charles Spurgeon said, “The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.” It is amazing, for instance, how many problems existed in the Church of Corinth. I don’t think I would have enjoyed being a member of a church full of factions with its members suing each other and the leadership tolerating sexual sins within the membership. Not to mention the chaos in the worship services. But even with all these problems, Paul didn’t counsel the faithful members to leave and start a new church.
He didn’t overlook the problems either. Rather, he called everyone to obedience. Obedience is every member’s responsibility. If we see sin in the church, we have a responsibility not to leave, but to address the problems (Matt. 18).
Perhaps God allowed us to be the ones to see blind spots in our church because God want us to be the voices of change. Rather than complaining that a church is unwelcoming to visitors, seek to fill the gap by greeting visitors as they enter the door. If the problem is more serious and deeply rooted, address the leadership. But remember, however, to go humbly with a willingness to help.
6. Have You Sought Forgiveness and Reconciliation?
Leaving a church in anger is never a good thing. Leaving a church without seeking repentance and forgiveness is a sin. I am not sure what Euodia and Syntyche were fighting about, but they were commanded by the Apostle Paul to come to an agreement (Phil. 4:2). We will not need all of the fruit of the Spirit such as forgiveness, long-suffering, and patience when we get to heaven. But we certainly need it in the church. It would be easy to love perfected people, but we are called to love and suffer long with imperfect people. We are called to forgive them when they do us wrong. In fact, before we can properly worship God, we are commanded to make things right with those who have offended us (Matt. 5:24). Do not believe the lie that it is possible to please God by worshiping in a new church if you have failed to make things right with the people in your current church.
7. Have You Talked With the Leadership of the Church?
With this in mind, we don’t need to leave the church through the backdoor without saying anything to the leadership of the church. This, sadly, happens all of the time. People enter the front door by going through the membership class only to exit the back door without saying anything to anyone.
Of course, this is done, they say, for the sake of peace and not causing trouble. Though these are good motives, it is neither kind nor right. We naturally want to justify everything we do, and it is easy to be right in our own eyes. But just as it is unwise to make a judgment on a matter without hearing the other side (Pro. 18:17), it is unwise to think we are justified in leaving a church without hearing what the elders have to say. Of course, we may feel we don’t need the wisdom of the elders (especially if we have lost respect for them), but it may be that the elders can clear up some miscommunication or bring clarity to the situation. And even if they are wrong and we are right, don’t they have the right to know our side of the story? Shouldn’t the elders have the opportunity to address our accusations and repent if necessary? In short, we should do our best not to walk away from a church without including the leadership of the church in the process.
8. Have You Sought the Blessing of the Leadership of the Church?
More than just having an honest conversation with leaders of a church, we should do our best to leave with the blessing of the church. I don’t know of any church that enjoys seeing members leave, but much of the pain of losing members can be minimized by members seeking to leave with the blessing of the church. If the church can’t pray and bless us as we are leaving, it may imply that hurt feelings and offensives need to be resolved before we move on to the next church. Leaving in the right way means we seek to do what we can to leave as faithful members to the very end.
9. Have You Considered that the Grass May Not Be Greener on the Other Side?
Flaws are easier to see the closer we stand to something. From a distance, everything (besides God) looks nicer. We often see the inconsistencies and shortcomings of our own church because of the proximity we are to the situation. We may be deceived in thinking the church down the road looks better only to find it has even deeper problems. Take care not to leave an imperfect church to find that there is no other place to go. An imperfect church is better than no church. Wandering around for months and years visiting different churches is not healthy. It may just be that the problems we are familiar with are small compared to the deep problems that result from losing a church home.
10. Have You Prayed About It?
Praying about leaving a church is vital. We need to have a clear conscience before God in everything we do—especially when it comes to leaving a church. But as we pray, ask the Lord to help us be obedient to all the “one another” commands of Scriptures. Pray for divine help in loving the brethren. Ask the Lord to help us leave without bitterness or resentment or any form of uncharity in our hearts. Ask the Lord to bless the church we are leaving and guide us in the church we are seeking to join.
Conclusion
Separating from your church family should be painful. It should be hard. Staying committed should be our default position. It may be time to leave a church, but make sure you leave in the right way. If we can’t leave with a clear conscience, it may be that we need to stay.