Great Expectations - When to Leave a Church

This post co-authored by Deacon Trevor Hallam

When Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem at the start of his final week before his death, many people called out to him saying “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Hosanna is a word that implies adoration of the one receiving the comment – and the simple etymology of the word means “please save” or “save now”. In the context of the crowd’s expectations of the coming of the kingdom of David one thing is crystal clear – the people expected that as Jesus entered Jerusalem on that day that he was bringing an earthly kingdom with him that would realize prosperity for the Jews and freedom from Roman oppression. They expected salvation.

Jesus came to save but not in the way they expected him to. Because of this, many of these very same people were there one week later at the trial of Jesus yelling “Crucify him!”They had expectations of God – he didn’t meet their expectations – they bailed pretty quickly.

This got us thinking – what expectations do we have of the church that are fair – meaning expectations that the church should meet and if it doesn’t that we should indeed feel justified in bailing out? And on the flipside, which expectations do people have of the church that are really terrible reasons to bail on a church, but people often leave anyway because they are either too self focused or because they are expecting the wrong things?

Let’s begin with expectations we should all have. If your church is missing these things, leaving is probably best:

1) Christ centricity – A local church should be focused on Jesus in everything that they do, and it should be concentrated on drawing you closer to Jesus. Jesus must be recognized as the rightful head of the church.

2) Biblical preaching – Your local church must preach from the Bible. This doesn’t mean that the preacher has to have a physical Bible in hand. Reading verses off of a screen is still reading and preaching from the Bible. The physical book isn’t what brings life; it’s the words of God that bring life.

3) Provides avenues for worship – The goal of the local church is to provide a place for the community of believers to worship God. The church should also love to reach non believers with the message of the Kingdom of God with the purpose of drawing new people to worship.

4) Cares about being both wide and deep – For the church to be wide it must grow. If your church never grows, something is wrong. God is not opposed to numbers, in fact Luke often points to numbers of people being saved in Acts. If your numbers equate with saved lives, then celebrating numbers is a great way to recognize the power and grace of God in your church. At the same time, if your church is only wide but it isn’t deep then there is a strong chance that your church is full of people who just love to have their ears tickled but are not engaging in the mission. If your church isn’t growing deeper, it will eventually stop growing wide. Beware when a church puts little value in discipleship.

5) Has elders – If your church is not governed by a plurality of leaders, then there is a good chance that your church is being led by the will of your pastor rather than the will of God. The Holy Spirit speaks through a council of Godly men.

6) Provides godly mentors – If there are no mentors in the church that you can go to in order to ask questions and be discipled, then growth will be difficult. Small groups aren’t necessarily commanded in Scripture, but there is a biblical paradigm for them in the New Testament and they provide a great avenue for mentorship. If mentorship isn’t happening in the church – try to be an agent of change. And don’t disqualify someone’s ability to mentor you because of your own fears or worldly expectations. God often provides mentors in unexpected places.

7) Theological harmony of major doctrines – If you have theological disagreements with a church on primary issues – leave quickly. If you have too many theological disagreements on secondary issues of great importance then you should still support the church you disagree with, but leaving might still be what’s best. Theology always drives what we do as Christians. As you will see below – theological nit picking can be taken too far, but where massive disagreement is had it might be best to find a church where more agreement is found.

8) A place to use your spiritual gifts – Now this one needs clarification. If you have the gift of hospitality and your church doesn’t have a hospitality ministry should you leave – I say no. It just means that you need to be creative about how to use your gift to bless the people around you. But in general, if there are very limited avenues in the community you’re apart of for people to use their gifting, then it becomes difficult to obey God in the area of utilizing your spiritual gifts. The church should encourage people to serve using the gifts God gave them.

9) Concerned with missional living – The church should be concentrated on evangelism, mercy and justice, and working hand in hand with the Church of Jesus outside of its own local expression. If a church is too self focused and ignores its place in the bigger picture of the Kingdom then chances are it isn’t engaged in the mission of Jesus as holistically as it should be.

10) Loves to pray – If a church doesn’t emphasize prayer much then there is a chance that it is guilty of either or both of the following – 1) it isn’t involved in ministry with high enough stakes to need God’s help, or 2) It is too confident in its own strength and abilities and doesn’t feel the need to draw on God. Both of these are bad by the way.

11) Handles money wisely – If the church mishandles money, you shouldn’t trust its leaders with your soul. Be informed and ask questions – a church that is responsible with money shouldn’t mind being transparent about how money is being spent.

People often leave churches for terrible reasons that are based more on self focus and pride than Scripture. Here are 11 popular reasons that should be thought through before leaving:

1) The leadership makes mistakes – Leaders make mistakes. All of them. If you leave a church when your leaders make mistakes, you will be church hoping for the rest of your life. Try showing grace instead, and don’t be afraid to challenge your leaders respectfully when they make mistakes.

2) The church has cliques – Churches have cliques – almost all of them. Try being an agent of change rather than leaving. It’s not solely everyone else’s responsibility to become your best friend; you bear responsibility for reaching out as well. Most people that have told me that their church is full of cliques are the same people that never tried to do anything about it. When you reach out, serve others, and join small groups, the cliquey environment seems less prevalent.

3) It doesn’t meet all of your physical needs – First of all, no church can. There are too many individual needs with each person for a church to effectively meet them all. Secondly, it’s not the churches job to meet each and every need you have anyway. The church isn’t about you, it’s about Jesus and providing an avenue for you to worship him and be discipled in his way.

4) It doesn’t meet all of your spiritual needs – The church should be a place where you can grow spiritually to a degree, but no preacher can preach in a way that meets the exact spiritual need of every individual in the church. If the sermons aren’t deep enough for you – don’t leave the church – get off of your butt and feed yourself. The preacher should be more focusing on connecting with non Christians and babes in Christ who aren’t quite mature enough to feed themselves. And besides, if the constant preaching of the simple gospel isn’t deep enough for you then you aren’t as mature as you thought you were anyway. All of the most mature Christians I know are moved more by the gospel each time they hear it.

5) Musical style – There is a woman in our church that hates our music. She has a hard time singing along and doesn’t really understand our lyrics. She stays in our church because she has a ministry to younger women, loves her small group, and grows by hearing the sermons each week. She is a great model of selflessness. You won’t love everything your church does – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there.

6) Preaching style – Our church uses predominately expository preaching, but I’m always blown away by how many people consider topical preaching to be an unhealthy method. Just because you preach topically doesn’t mean that you ignore difficult passages, and preaching topically actually makes it easier to preach to the current needs of your congregation as a whole. By the way – the Sermon on the Mount was a topical sermon – Jesus seemed to use the method effectively.

7) Background and age of congregation – If you are in a church where very few people are “like” you – great. God likes variety. As long as you have Jesus in common with people, the gospel should be a good enough reason to help you fit in at any church regardless of the genre of people.

8) Theological nit picking – Earlier I stated that too many disagreements on important issues is a good reason to leave a church, but don’t take that too far. There is a woman in our church that disagrees slightly with how far we apply our complementarian theology, but she is a thriving member of our church and a small group leader. If you leave over small theological nuances, you will never find a church that fits.

9) Minor strategy/philosophy differences – If you leave a church when the elders make a decision you don’t agree with then ask yourself one question – do I think I should lead the church? Even the leaders disagree. To be frank, I think I disagree with about 30% of the decisions we make at elder meetings. But when the majority wants to go in a certain direction I respect the decision and keep my mouth shut, and I usually find out that the majority was right. Show humility.

10) Receive church discipline – The Bible commands leaders to carry out church discipline at times. If church discipline is brought to you from your leaders and you leave, then you are communicating that you need to be able to do church – and Christianity for that matter – your own way. You are not your own. You were bought with a price and saved into the church. If church discipline is carried out with you, be mature and take it like a man. Unless you’re a woman, then take it like a woman.

11) If you can’t serve exactly where you want – Sometimes people want to serve in places that they aren’t ready to serve in. Either they aren’t ready from a talent perspective, they haven’t proved that they are faithful with little, or their character disqualifies them. If you aren’t allowed to serve exactly where you want – don’t leave – do what you’re asked by leadership until they believe that you are ready. Again – show humility.