In connection with the previous couple of posts, I thought I would mention one other category of people, those who think that they don't need to join a church at all. "I can avoid all of the problems of dealing with other . . . people, sinners, by 'worshiping in my own way'." There is a growing number of people, especially with the advent of "internet churches," who just opt to not join a local church.
There are others who are convinced that official membership in a church has no biblical backing and so become permanent visitors to a local church.
For those brothers and sisters, and for others who may be considering this, or wondering how to interact with friends who think this way, let me offer a link to a great little article aptly titled, "Why Join a Church?" that addresses very briefly some of the biblical issues that point to the need for membership in a local church.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
When and Why to Leave Your Church (Part 2)
In my last post I began a consideration of why people leave their churches, which came from a recent Voices of Faith question. I identified three general categories of reasons, Economic, Theological, and Personal. We had gotten through the first two but need still to deal with personal reasons people leave churches.
Before getting too deep into this let me identify two main types of relationships that people have with their home churches today.
One is the traditional relationship in which you bind yourself to a congregation by the taking of membership vows and voluntarily place yourself under the spiritual authority of a local body and its elders.
The other is the laid-back 21st century American non-committal type of church relationship. Many churches, especially non-denominational churches simply don't have a membership, or the idea of membership is very loose. People come and go as their appetites change, and the leadership of the church does not pay too much (if any) attention to it. And church discipline is not even on the radar. A comparison of these two will have to wait for another time. Let me simply say that the second option, as popular as it is, makes proper, biblical functioning of the church body and its ruling body nearly impossible. But lets return to people leaving their church.
Once you have joined yourself to a congregation and placed yourself under the care of that church and its elders (assuming the first model of church membership mentioned above), it should only be for the most serious of reasons that you would be willing to break the vows you made when you joined, which fall into the two previous categories, economic or theological.
Unfortunately, we have stood this on its head in the church. Staying with or leaving a church for theological or doctrinal reasons rarely happens (most people have very little idea of what their church believes, unfortunately), and personal preferences become the most important things in people's minds.
And just what are these personal reasons that have become paramount in the thinking of many? Let me list just a few:
Personal
These are almost always the least well-supported reasons for leaving a church.Before getting too deep into this let me identify two main types of relationships that people have with their home churches today.
One is the traditional relationship in which you bind yourself to a congregation by the taking of membership vows and voluntarily place yourself under the spiritual authority of a local body and its elders.
The other is the laid-back 21st century American non-committal type of church relationship. Many churches, especially non-denominational churches simply don't have a membership, or the idea of membership is very loose. People come and go as their appetites change, and the leadership of the church does not pay too much (if any) attention to it. And church discipline is not even on the radar. A comparison of these two will have to wait for another time. Let me simply say that the second option, as popular as it is, makes proper, biblical functioning of the church body and its ruling body nearly impossible. But lets return to people leaving their church.
Once you have joined yourself to a congregation and placed yourself under the care of that church and its elders (assuming the first model of church membership mentioned above), it should only be for the most serious of reasons that you would be willing to break the vows you made when you joined, which fall into the two previous categories, economic or theological.
Unfortunately, we have stood this on its head in the church. Staying with or leaving a church for theological or doctrinal reasons rarely happens (most people have very little idea of what their church believes, unfortunately), and personal preferences become the most important things in people's minds.
And just what are these personal reasons that have become paramount in the thinking of many? Let me list just a few:
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