Yesterday I posted [here] about how sometimes people go MIA. We'd all like to think that when someone finds a church home they'll just hang with that church for the rest of their lives. But the reality in the American church today is that the average American evangelical stays in a church for 4.9 years. This leads to a lot of church hopping and shopping (which is another post altogether).
The question we're trying to deal with is why do people leave churches? The second most common reason is, "The church just isn't meeting my needs."
This can be a very valid reason to leave a church. Sometimes churches settle into patterns and ways of doing things that are no longer effective, but no one is willing to change to something better. Sometimes the church may not have quality programs that are needed, i.e. children's ministry, student ministry, etc. Sometimes a church just loses it's evangelistic "edge" and there's nothing happening. Those can all be valid reasons to move on.
But sometimes the meaning of, "The church isn't meeting my needs," is based more on an American consumer mentality than anything. Some will identify with a church because they think it will meet all their expectations, but when it doesn't they take their "business" elsewhere. And just like they would walk away from a restaurant and never say a word to the manager, they will walk out of a church and never say a word to the leaders. It's our consumer culture, but it isn't biblical!
More tomorrow...
P.S. My wife and Arianna left for Minnesota today. Pray for me and Lexi!
That's a real good way of looking at it. People do jugde churches on "What can I get out of this?". When they're not happy they move elsewhere to try to satisfy their needs (and take their hurts with them - another topic altogether).
This is fair enough... but church isn't all about taking. We need to be thinking about how we can contribute most of all.
Like where you're going with this - looking forward to part 2.
Posted by: Alastair | July 18, 2007 at 04:15 AM