Christianity today has an article called Flirting With Other Churches. The caption underneath the title reads...
"Sometimes Christians look for new churches for all the wrong reasons. Here's how a Hollywood movie helped one church shopper go back to his home church.I was intrigued and had to go read because I find I have a different viewpoint on this. I am not made of the fabric that says stay at a church even if it costs you your life or your kids lives. I was expecting to hear some more of that. Interestingly enough, I ended up agreeding with a lot of what the writer had to say...okay, most, but not all.
I think the writer is bang on in this...examine yourself! If the reason your moving on from a church is because the social club has got boring - there's a really good chance the issue is internal and not external. The writer has a really good checklist at the end of the article that is worth the read.
Having said that, I believe that there are good reasons to leave a church. If you've done the personal checklist, if you've "really done" what you need to do and you still can't be the you God created you to be, move on! After all, is it about individual institutions, or is it about the Kingdom? I have a major family leaving our church soon, we're losing them, but is the Kingdom. I believe they have good reasons for leaving, which I'm not going to go into right now.
Don't get me wrong, our place of all places would be looking at having to close up if just a few people decided they were just going to leave whenever they we're looking for more "stuff" in a church. So, there is a level of commitment needed. But here's where I believe it needs to come from...
We need to live with the sense that church is not a "place - social gathering" we go to on Sundays, but that this is the place God has called us to do mission in, through and together with. Perhaps that's really the issue I'm trying to get at. If you don't have that sense, again, you need to examine yourself and get right, not with the place, but with God - and then maybe with the body.
However, big however here, if Kingdom & mission is not something the leadership and the structure wants or allows for...then my feeling, and yes, this is only my opinion...move on and join God where he's working and where you'll be able to join him on mission.
I guess my problem with the article is that, in my opinion, it's still talking mainly about "going or attending" church. I know that it's about more than that, but much of the article still has that feel... and that's is just not what church is about.
Posted by edI thought the article was good in pointing out that sometimes it's easier to blame "the church" when in fact we could sometimes be part of the problem.
Posted by: Darrylthat was the part I agreed with him on it, why I thought his checklist at the end was right on.
Posted by: ed