Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about church hopping. Should you? Could you? Would you?

Hope you enjoy the discussion. So as it turns out, you know, people are going to leave churches. People have actually left our churches. LifeWay Research and also the Pew Research organization says that 10 to 20% of your people are going to leave every year. And that most people who hang around churches, they hang around for three to seven years.

So you got turnover. But one thing that we don't like are Churchhoppers. Your blood pressure rose when I said Churchhopper, didn't it? So we wanna talk about when to leave a church, should you leave a church, why, you know, all that type of thing. And you know, every pastor has experienced disappointment because you're always disappointed when somebody leaves.

Because you blame yourself, you know, not all the time. You know, you know it's their problem often. It is to a greater or lesser extent a reflection on their view of you. Right. And your ministry.

That's just the way it is. So I think let's start out just talking about reasons why you probably should leave a church, okay? I'm just gonna click some of them off, We'll talk about that. And then after that, let's talk about wrong reasons to leave. And then we'll maybe, if we have time, we'll talk about if you really need to leave, how should you leave?

So here's some right reasons to leave a church. There's a misrepresentation of the gospel or a mishandling of the word of God chronically. Worldly worship, a culture of worldliness in the church that's poisoning your children or yourself. Significant doctrinal changes in the church, you didn't sign up for this. And then of course, you live too far away, That's a very legitimate reason to leave.

Or you moved. Partly is loaded in the statistics of people leaving churches, is people move. So let's talk about that right reasons to leave a church. Yeah, you know, misrepresenting the gospel is one of the most serious offenses there are. And we need to be aware of that.

One that speaks to us that we need to have a good understanding of the gospel and doctrine. And it doesn't mean though that you're nitpicking every little nuance that your pastor is saying because we have to be...we need to be humble. And no one gets it right 100% of the time. But if it's something significant regarding the very nature of who God is or the gospel, then absolutely there should be a conversation to begin that before you just, you know, high-tail it out of there. You need to sit down and speak with the pastor or elders and share your concerns with them.

And then there could be a good reason to leave that church. Imagine a whole church being deceived about the gospel. What a terrifying thing. So what is a church? Well, it's a group of believers who meet in a locality and they hear preaching together, they pray together, they encourage each other.

If you study the one another's in the New Testament, there's something like 50 of them. It's how Christians relate to each other, but it's not just Christians, it's Christians who are living in tight quarters in close proximity. And implied in the one and others is that you know each other well and you're investing for the long term. So many or most of these one and others are not carried out in casual relationship. Trust is required, proximity is required, time is required.

So local churches are designed for this. They have official leadership. They have official structure. They take people in and they put people out in terms of discipline. So it's really serious.

And it's analogous to marriage, meaning there are places where you can find overlap and things that are similar and applications, but it's not identical to marriage. In marriage, we would say you should never leave that marriage, except for cases of adultery or abandonment, is our view of it. But essentially, marriage is permanent. Local churches are not like that. You have the ability to leave, And ultimately, you decide which local church you should be a part of, but you should have an eye towards the long term because you only really squeeze the most benefit or maybe even benefit out of it if it's over the long term.

So there are legitimate reasons to leave a church, but it should never be done lightly, and it should be done after a considerable process of evaluating, working patiently with people over the areas that you feel like you need something different than that church offers. Yeah, you know, I think you really hit an important point is just go slow at it. A lot of consideration. And don't just disappear. That's actually part of our church covenant is, failure to communicate is actually breaking the covenant.

You need to speak to and consider it well, because it's a big deal. One of the great pleasures for a Christian is to see the long-term trajectory of other Christians. Meaning, Transformation typically doesn't happen day to day. It happens year to year and decade to decade. And when you're not there year to year, and for a decade or for two decades, you miss the opportunity to have a front row seat to see the transformation of other people and the power of the gospel to transform.

You're sort of cheating yourself out of one of the great pleasures of being a Christian. That's so true. Yeah, the real Christian is real. He's going to grow. And it's such a joy to see that.

It is. But you know, there are some reasons to leave. We mentioned there just the misrepresentation of the gospel. There's even a mishandling of the Word of God. You know, ice-eating into the text what is not there is dangerous ground, bringing foreign thoughts and injecting them into the text.

Those can be dangerous. And so we do want to be a part of a church that rightly handles and rightly divides the Word of Truth. Yeah, there's this spirit of inventiveness in evangelicalism, but that's not the place to be in the... With the Word of God. The inventions of man in the Word...

In the worship of God, in the preaching of the Word of God. It's sinful, right? We have a fixed Word of truth. But you have various skill levels in terms of exposition. And you have to decide whether the weakness of your pastor really causes you to think wrong thoughts about the Bible and about God.

And that, you know, it's not getting your passage wrong one sermon. You know, This should be something that you're seeing on a continual basis that it's just really mishandling, not just a one sermon where the pastor differs from your opinion of the text. That's not what we're talking about. Of course, you can also go talk to your pastor about his inadequate hermeneutical principles. Pastors love it when you do that.

Yes, they do. Sometimes it's called for. The way we handle the Word of God, As a preacher, I'm so conscious that the way I handle the Word of God in the pulpit is as important or more important than any of the truth statements that I proclaim from the pulpit. Long after they've forgotten every individual sentence that I've said, they'll have a sense of how I treated the Word of God. Amen.

A very high view of Scripture. James 3.1 is always the terrifying verse for me ever since I've been preaching the Word. Which is? Be not many masters, knowing that you shall receive a greater condemnation. The teacher part of that, the master is from the King James, but be not many teachers.

And there is accountability and responsibility that God places upon the preacher of the Word to rightly divide the Word of truth and that we handle it carefully. And it's not a light thing that we do. So a very high view of Scripture is paramount. You know, and I think this really begins at the beginning when you're looking for a church, find a church where the gospel is not misrepresented, where the Word of God is handled accurately, where the worship isn't worldly, where the culture is on a trajectory to holiness, not more worldliness. So I think you have to vet these things on the front end to be around there a lot, you know, before you join a church, really understand what's going on.

So there's only one kind of church and that's a church made up of centers. That includes the leaders, that includes the people who are attending and hearing. If we can on this podcast, we'd like to save some people who are listening a decade or two, where they haven't come to terms with the fact that when they leave the church that they're dissatisfied with, that they're going to another church, that in time they'll be dissatisfied about some things in that church. Right. It's where we get the word church hopper.

Yeah, it's the people are going to offend you sometimes because they're on a sanctification track. Or there are some unbelievers probably in every church. And even the believers are on a sanctification track, which means they're only partly sanctified, and they're still growing, and they still say things they shouldn't say, they still do things they shouldn't do. And so you can be disillusioned by that and go to another church, but you're going to another church in the same state, at least in that sense. And that's why if you find a good church, you probably should stay there a long time.

Let's talk about wrong reasons to leave a church. And I'll just click through and we can talk about them. The first and foremost, the most common, the 98% issue people leave is they got offended with somebody. You know, often it's the pastors or somebody else in the church, they can't get over it and they say, I'm done with you. And so they want to leave.

Second, there's a tendency in some people just to sort of, they just get tired of the people they're around. I want new people. These people were exciting, but they're not anymore. I want to find some new people. They're just not as passionate.

They're just not as knowledgeable. Whatever it is. You loved them when you came, but the love is gone. And also you've got disagreements over secondary matters. And we don't have time to try to tease that out, but when you have a church, you have a group of people, they come from so many different places, so many different understandings of doctrine.

And that's actually good, because you're leading them together in a direction, but you're not going to have everybody in your church agree with you. And then another bad reason to leave a church is somebody falls into sin, and then you bolt. Well, you know, let's say the pastor falls into sin, and so you think I'm out of here. Well, wait a minute. Who's going to hold things together?

Who's going to encourage the flock in the most discouraging thing that ever happened to that church? Disunity in a church. So just a point of clarification. We're not talking about a pastor falling into sin and the church refusing to do anything about it. Oh, no, absolutely.

No, he was dealt with, he was disciplined. He's probably no longer there. It's not the reason to leave. We're really talking about turbulent times in a church. That is one of the key turbulent times in a church, when there's sin and discipline, whether it's in or outside of leadership.

But there's all sorts of kinds of things that can bring turbulence into the church. And there's an impulse to say, I'd just be better off to go somewhere else where there's not turbulence. But again, there are seasons of turbulence in every church. You might go to a church with no turbulence and you're one year out from maybe more turbulence than the church that you left, but you just don't know it yet. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament epistles, we read so many passages there about how interpersonal relationships are so important and difficult. You know, there would not be a command to be long-suffering if there were not ample opportunities to practice being long-suffering. And you're going to be with people that get on your nerves. And in fact, God ordained them to be there, to actually get on your nerves.

And we, you know, always joke and call it holy sandpaper. And there's different grits of sandpaper. Some is about 100 grit, and you got some that are about a good 20 grit. And God may be using that 20 grit person to really knock off some of your edges and be patient with them and just see that as someone that God is wanting to use in your life. And in fact, he may be using you in their life to help them along, but It's not a good reason to leave just because there may be personality differences or someone gets on your nerves or has offended you in some way.

Yeah, it often happens where if you have a season where a few people are leaving the church, maybe they're disgruntled or disappointed, they want new people, whatever it might be. And then other people say, well, maybe I need to leave too. That's not a good reason to leave. Churches go through demographic waves. They do, every church does.

And because some people are leaving isn't a reason. I remember, I think it was John MacArthur said that he pastored, I think, five churches over a 40-year period, five different, they're just different people, because people come and go. And the generations change, You know, there are generational transitions and things like that that happen. But it's not a reason to leave because you know three or four families left now maybe maybe we should maybe they see something that I don't know you know yeah you know one of the things I always mentioned to a new person who wants to become a member, a new member, is just regarding their expectations. What are your expectations when you come here?

Are you coming in looking to be served or are you looking to serve? And I've always found that those who think your church is the friendliest are those who are coming to serve, and those who would complain that the church is not very friendly and not very warm is those who are actually coming to be served. So when your focus is on serving other believers and serving the church, you really don't have time to feel sorry for yourself. Right. And just go at it.

You know, be the one in others and serve the body of Christ, and you'll find that that church has become the friendliest church of all. I saw a really funny cartoon a long time ago. There was this group of cavemen on a, on a ledge, a ledge of a cliff. And it's obviously the leader had just thrown somebody off the cliff and the leader turns around and says, okay, is there anybody else here whose needs aren't getting met? So we're in a particular, location that I think, has something that works against us in a strange sort of way, meaning we have a reasonable density of Bible-loving churches.

So not all of them are what I would necessarily choose if I had what I thought was a better option. But if I was out in the middle of nowhere and that, whichever church we're talking about, was the one, I could go, I could function there, I could get the Word of God faithfully preach the real gospel, passionately pled. So if you live in an area like that, there's an increased temptation to be a sampler of churches. Because it's not like there's only one good church in town. There's actually a decent number of Bible-loving churches in town.

Don't let that be a reason that you don't give yourself long-term to a body of believers. Okay. So let's move to how to leave. And I'll just click through just a quick list and we can just talk about whatever. First, take time talking to the pastors before you announce you're going to leave.

Second, be honest. You know, well, what really is the problem? Are you the problem? Or is the church the problem? A lot of times when people are ready to leave, they don't want it, they're not going to tell the truth.

You don't hear the real reason. And the reason kind of falls flat and you kind of know this isn't the reason. You should also consider how it will affect others. A church is really vulnerable, especially when an officer, an elder, a deacon leaves. A church, you know, because then everybody is thinking, oh no, we elected this guy, why is he leaving?

A church is really vulnerable. If a pastor or a deacon is going to leave, he should really carefully consider the impact on the other people. Also consider the reputation of the church and the community. If somebody goes out in a ball of fire and they have all kinds of terrible things to say, the reputation of that church in the community will be harmed. And even if they leave peacefully, it will still have some effect on the reputation of that church.

So, you know, those are just some of the things that you... So if you leave, kind of, the nature of it is you have a level of dissatisfaction with certain things in the church. But recognize that after you leave, there are going to be people who haven't left, and the pastors of that church are tasked with helping whoever stays make progress. So you don't want to do things that undermine their ability to help people make progress in the church by you airing all your dissatisfactions on the way out the door. Right.

You know, I would say I've met people in my time that they have issues with every single church they've been in. And my advice to them would be, if you have a problem with every church, you may be actually the problem. You know, we should be able, as believers, we should be able to live at peace with other believers. We're getting ready to spend eternity with God's people, and we need to be careful. We need to, again, be patient, be kind, be gentle, be self-controlled.

All of the fruit of the spirit should be working in their heart. And learn to be patient with others and to live at peace and at unity if at all possible. You can leave, But if you're going to leave, I would say leave in a really good way. Leave in such a way that if you ever came back to visit, they would be glad to see you. Don't be one of those that takes a bad name when you go.

There actually is a good way, And I've seen it done. I've seen it practiced. We've had people leave our church who, who before they leave, they make an announcement after they've spoken with the elders about it. And, and then we announced, Hey, they're getting ready to go. And then everyone, they come and get a hug.

Yeah. It's, yeah, it's, it's bittersweet. Yeah. But then you have some that just kind of disappear and no one knows what happened. That's just the big mystery.

Also there's a weakness in our, in our humanity. If we leave somewhere, we got to have a good reason. Well, let's say you were actually, you were bitter against somebody, but so when you go out you go and tell all kinds of stories that aren't true because you need a good reason. Why did you leave that church? Well, this, this, this, this, Maybe some exaggeration happens like that.

So I think guarding your tongue, this is the church of Jesus Christ. You don't wanna be slandering a true church of Jesus Christ. So this is America, the land of rugged individualism. If you talk to Kevin Swanson, he'll say, no, that's not for the church. What's for the church is rugged covenantalism, where we actually bind ourselves together into local churches, and we actually can take some turbulence.

We can take some errors. We can take some offenses. And we can survive it and thrive, come out on the other side of it thriving. So, amen to that. What we need is rugged covenantalism where we bind ourselves together in love under the banner of the gospel in local churches and we stick it out for a long period of time if God would give us grace to do that.

That's what makes marriages that have gone through the decades, that's what makes them so sweet. It's not that they didn't have turbulence. It's that they stuck it out through the turbulence and their love has grown deeper and stronger. Okay, so there are reasons, good reasons to leave a church. There are some bad reasons to leave a church and there are things that you ought to do if you need to leave a church, which may be legitimate.

So there you have it. Okay. May the Lord strengthen His church. Amen. Amen.

And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope you can join us next time. Church and Family Life is proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture by helping build strong families and strong churches. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out www.churchandfamilylife.com