End Times and Current Events

General Category => Emergent church => Topic started by: Mark on January 28, 2014, 05:14:43 am



Title: 5 Really Good Reasons To Leave Your Church
Post by: Mark on January 28, 2014, 05:14:43 am
5 Really Bad Good Reasons To Leave Your Church

Let’s be honest, while there are some good reasons for leaving a church, there are a lot more bad ones. As a pastor, I hear some of them every now and then as people walk out the door. As a church planter, I hear them constantly as people walk in the door.

If you’re thinking about looking for a new church home, please don’t use one of these five reasons to make the jump:

1. “I’m not being fed”

Do pastors have a responsibility to steward the scriptures and care for their church spiritually? You bet they do. And it can be all too easy to overlook this while trying to manage staff, build systems, meet needs, put out fires and develop leaders, all while overseeing the overall vision and direction of the church. But let’s be honest, if you own a smartphone, a personal computer or a library card, you have access to some of the best preaching and teaching in the world. You can even find teaching archives of some of the greatest preachers of all time. Christian, you have access to more “meat” than any other generation before you!

To leave a church because you’re not getting "enough" is a cop out. Your primary call in the church is to contribute, not just to consume. As a Christian, you shouldn’t require spoon-feeding for the rest of your life. Eventually you need to learn how to feed yourself so that, in time, you can actually feed others. Remember, your call is not just to be a disciple but to make disciples.

2. “It’s getting too big”

I can appreciate the sense of loss that accompanies growth. When we first began, our church was little more than a small band of brothers and sisters meeting together in a living room. It feels very different now that we are a church of a few hundred people spread across multiple services. There are moments when I miss the intimacy and simplicity of those early days. But remaining small is a sad and unbiblical goal.

When churches are faithful to the Great Commission, lives will be changed and people will be added to their number. It may not happen rapidly, but growth is sometimes inevitable for faithful churches, given a long enough timeline. If you have a problem with big churches, you really wouldn’t have liked the first church, and you definitely won’t like heaven.

3. “I don’t agree with everything that is being preached”

You know what? Neither do I and I’m the pastor. As such I fully reserve the right to disagree with myself. And every now and then I do exactly that. Why? Because I’m learning. I’m growing. I’m asking questions. And my hope is that those I pastor are doing likewise.

If you insist that your pastor agree with you on every little thing under the sun, you are going to either hop from church to church for the rest of your life in perpetual disappointment or you will eventually give up and drop out altogether. Chances are you are not going to agree with everything that is preached anywhere. As long as your pastor isn’t preaching outright heresy, you can afford to disagree on secondary issues.The truth is when you choose to stay despite disagreeing on some things, you, your pastor and your church are better for it.

4. “My Needs Aren’t Being Met”

When someone lists this as a reason for leaving it is a dead giveaway that somewhere along the way they came to believe that the Church actually exists to serve their needs. They’ve bought into the lie that, when it comes to church, it’s really about “me.” Here’s the problem: the Church actually isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus. It’s his Church. He came for it. He died for it. He redeemed it. He continues to build it. And one day, he’ll come back for it. It’s his.

This is the same Jesus who came to seek and to save the lost and then commissioned his Church to go and do the same. The Church doesn’t exist to meet your needs. You are a part of the Church that exists to meet the needs of the world. Put away the shopping cart and pick up a shovel.

5. Unresolved Conflict

Wherever you find the community of sinning saints you will find conflict. Lots of it. The Church is one big family full of characters and misfits. Sometimes sisters argue. Sometimes brothers fight. Sometimes you want to bury your weird uncle in the backyard. But despite it all, family is supposed to be the place where you stick together. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Paul addressed a lot of church conflict in his letters. No where do I hear him encouraging believers to bail on one another or move on down the road to a different church where it’ll be easier. Instead, much of his letters are his encouraging and coaching these ragamuffin communities in how to do this very hard and messy thing together.

When we leave at first sign of real conflict, it shortchanges God’s best work in our midst. It sidesteps the process of repentance, forgiveness and grace. It negates the power of the Gospel to bring reconciliation where reconciliation might seem impossible. We and those around us miss out on all of it when we just leave.

I do know that not all conflict is resolvable. I know that reconciliation is impossible where there is no repentance. I get that. But remember, repentance starts with us. And so does the extending of grace. And when we resolve to stick around and keep on repenting and extending grace, I think God can do far more than we often give Him credit for. Some of God’s best work happens in the mess.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/5-really-bad-reasons-leave-your-church


Title: Re: 5 Really Good Reasons To Leave Your Church
Post by: Mark on January 28, 2014, 05:22:27 am
Quote
Let’s be honest,

Kind of deceptive in your article.  ::)

1. “I’m not being fed”

This should be your NUMBER 1 reason for leaving. If your not being taught the Bible, than you will never learn it. You should leave and get to a place that encourages learning the Bible and from people that know it. Not sit and live in a dead church.

2. “It’s getting too big”

Churches are supposed to be small, usually in peoples homes. Not Mega Roman Catholic Indoctrination centers

3. “I don’t agree with everything that is being preached”

This could easily be tied with #1. If they arent preaching the Bible than you need to leave.

Quote
You know what? Neither do I and I’m the pastor. As such I fully reserve the right to disagree with myself.

So you deliberately LIE to your congregation.. You on PURPOSE teach stuff you dont believe. This is the type of preacher you HAVE to run from.

Jam 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

4. “My Needs Aren’t Being Met”

Jesus never said they would be, in fact he said the complete opposite. Bur if your not being fed the WORD, than that is a perfect reason to leave.

5. Unresolved Conflict

Quote
Wherever you find the community of sinning saints you will find conflict. Lots of it.

The Bible says to not have any fellowship with such people, so you dont have to leave on this one, but they do.

This author is your standard 501c3 emergent church preacher. Tell them what they want to hear, pack em in the doors and take their money.  ::)


Title: Re: 5 Really Good Reasons To Leave Your Church
Post by: Psalm 51:17 on January 28, 2014, 09:05:27 am
Yeah, was thinking the same thing - he came off as, "Don't you dare question your pastor!".

It's come to a point now where 1984 has hit churches in America at full swing - pretty much everyone is ordered to blindly follow whatever pastor, leader, etc is out there just b/c they're somehow "God's anointed".

FYI, at the "church" I attend, that 20-something youth leader(who preached sermons for several weeks after the previous pastor got fired) has been endorsing all kinds of heresies like Richard Foster mysticism stuff(ie-Foster has openly denied Jesus Christ being the Son of God, his blood atonement, etc). But en yet NOONE in the pews said nigh a word.

Yeah, churches in America nowdays are dead, dead, and dead, and the guy in the article OP pretty much makes himself an example of these churches.


Title: Re: 5 Really Good Reasons To Leave Your Church
Post by: Kilika on January 28, 2014, 01:30:10 pm
Quote
...To leave a church because you’re not getting "enough" is a cop out. Your primary call in the church is to contribute, not just to consume. As a Christian, you shouldn’t require spoon-feeding for the rest of your life. Eventually you need to learn how to feed yourself so that, in time, you can actually feed others. Remember, your call is not just to be a disciple but to make disciples...

Not only is this guy an admitted church preacher, but a church planter, so he admits part of what he does is to start new churchianity groups. I wonder what kind of money is involved in that little enterprise.

Clearly he either really hasn't read his bible, or what he has is not a bible, because Jesus made it very clear that what we are to do as believers is to firstly love God, then our neighbors.

But what he doesn't say is that within those buildings, you only are allowed to teach what that denomination allows. You go against their doctrines, you get booted.

Within those buildings, it's not about the truth, it's about maintaining that denominations doctrines of men. There is no open debating allowed in those places as to what the scriptures are telling us, seeing they set themselves up as the experts, just like Catholics, that the congregation is required to listen to. If the "church" elders deem you as still a "babe", then within that group, your treated with no respect and as not having the maturity to add any of your own understandings, so basically your expected to sit back and listen and keep your mouth shut. And that mentality is used within churchianity to keep the congregations ignorant, because they aren't being taught out of a real bible, and even if they use a KJB, they still teach doctrines of men that the apathetic unsaved group blindly listens to.

Called to "make disciples"? Talk about heresy!

We are exhorted to preach the gospel. Some will listen, some won't, but it is Jesus saving a man that makes them a disciple, not the actions of a man. Men cannot save a man. Jesus saves. Men tell others about Jesus. How those men react to those words is up to them, not the man that told them.

And this guy calls himself a preacher!  ::)