When should you leave your church?

Let’s be honest. Too many people move from church to church too often, and often for the wrong reasons.

What are some of those wrong reasons? Here are ten I can think of:

1. There is a person in that church that I don’t like. We just don’t get along.

2. The pastor is not my idea of ​​a good pastor. Sermons too long. He never visits me.

3. Music is not my style. Why can’t we sing the old songs?

4. They really didn’t need to buy that new rug. So many needs in the world and we are investing in “things”.

5. Young people are taking over. Old people have to sit and watch.

6. My Sunday School teacher gets sidetracked from time to time with some false things.

7. They invite speakers who are not entirely in line with our vision.

8. Always talking about money!

9. My best friends went to another church.

10. Too many people who don’t look like me, dress like me, eat like me.

Oh, there’s more, but you know what I’m talking about. Tea tasters, who want the church to be perfect in every way, to satisfy all their needs and desires. These people need to take a good look at Revelation 2 and 3, and see the kinds of things that were going on in the first century churches. And not once were people told to get out of those churches. Just to hold on. Be faithful. Repent if you have to.

Leaving the body of a church is painful for the church and destructive for the one who moves. Take it from someone who knows. Sadly, I have been among those who jump from place to place. I write these words to warn my brothers that it is not good practice.

Unless.

Yes, I think there are valid reasons for leaving.

Now, the elements above, and more similar to them, are in many cases, but not all, things that should be discussed by a board of elders. Is there a riot in the church? Let’s try it. Are not young men or women in their proper places? Let’s talk about it. Is money too big of a problem? Time to meet someone. But it is not time to go.

What about valid reasons? When is it appropriate and even necessary to flee, and run fast, from a congregation?

1. When the church is not really a church. That is, if you are dealing with a congregation of people who cannot trace their ancestry back to Jesus and the apostles, get out. Obviously, the cults and Rome are examples here.

2. When the church has so identified with the world and culture today that it qualifies for separation under Corinth, “Come out from their midst and be separate.” We should not have any communion with the world. There are worldly Christians in many churches, true. And there are different stages of worldliness, it is also true. But eventually a church can become so culturally relevant that it is spiritually irrelevant and causes more harm than good. I think it’s time to go out when a discerning Christian sees this.

The church must be holy, a place of refuge from an evil world. When the church becomes the world, technically it is no longer the church. When church is more entertaining than uplifting, run for your life.

3. When the Bible is no longer the authority and doctrine is no longer taught. When experience and feel-good meetings replace clear teaching sessions, it’s probably time to move on. Here again there are stages of progression. Wise believers will see it happen, talk to leaders about it, pray. But when this trend continues, the church becomes so wild in its emotional extravagance that it is desperate on its way to the place of evil. You wouldn’t want to invite a visitor here. And any place you can’t invite a visitor to is probably not a place you need to frequent either.

This list is not exhaustive either. But I think the point is made. Both points, in fact:

1. There are too many people moving. Those who seem to find a problem wherever they move, probably are the problem itself …

2. Too many Christians have been sucked into fellowships that are apostate, and of this world, not of Christ. They need to take a good look, then take a deep breath, then run a hundred yards out the door to a safer place.