Why_I_Would_Leave_This_Church.pdf

Over 30 years ago I preached a sermon on the subject of “Why I Would Leave This Church.” Under what conditions would you leave your local church to find another? When should a person separate? I have recently received emails from persons asking those very questions. They want to know if the Bible allows them or even compels them to move on. They wonder if there are times when members may pull up stakes and leave or even times when they must leave? How would wisdom answer them?

People leave churches for many reasons, but which reasons are warranted and sufficient? After all, in an age of consumerism people can leave churches for relatively inconsequential reasons, with little biblical rationale.

Of course the very question of leaving one local church to affiliate with another presupposes a context unlike that of many biblical towns like Philippi or Ephesus or Thessalonica where there was only one church. If you left one of those churches you couldn’t cross the street to attend another (though perhaps you could in Jerusalem and Antioch). Or, if you are part of the underground church in various places of the world today, you don’t have the option to simply cross the street to another church.

During my boyhood, our family made several geographical relocations, and in the process I observed firsthand the processes and biblical rationale by which my parents selected a Bible-believing church. Sometimes we landed in a church that was one town over. Sometimes two.

The churches that became our home church were not identical by any means, yet the doctrinal core components those churches held in common (e.g., authority and inerrancy of Scripture, incarnation of the divine crucified and risen Christ, salvation by grace through faith, the essentiality of new birth) were far more important than the distinctions of their various traditions or their varied teachings (on subjects such as Israel, the rapture, spiritual gifts, divorce, and so on).

We knew in advance that when we landed in a church we would land in an imperfect one. As the old bromide goes, “You will never be a member of a perfect church, for the moment you join it perfection goes out the window.” But that’s not to say there aren’t minimum core standards that should be sought, established, and guarded, and on account of which one might separate.

To separate or not separate—that is the question.

When it comes to deciding, note the difference between judgment and condemnation. The former acknowledges defects and shortcomings, keeping the baby while tossing out the bathwater. The latter determines that the baby is not a baby and throws it out with the bathwater. It all has to go.

Separation should revolve chiefly and centrally around disregard or outright contempt for the Bible—by establishing a false Christology, by teaching a way of salvation other than by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, by abandoning all efforts at church discipline and the pursuit of holy living, or by the gross neglect of biblical ordinances of baptism and The Lord’s Table. Crucial distinctions must be made not only about what is taught, but what is denied. Further, if your church forbids you to speak the truth in love, they are asking you to leave.

We must judge—that is, be judicious and discerning. But be not hasty. Default to charitable judgments, the kind you yourself would like to receive. Many of the best preachers I have known have later reversed themselves or modified their statements after thoughtful “noble Bereans” engaged them with careful and winsome appeals. If you smell a doctrinal rat, go directly to the leaders and inquire about it face to face, instead of activating the grapevine where divisiveness can get out of hand like a forest fire.

Pick your battles. Not every issue of conscience is an issue of salvific orthodoxy. Some are free to eat meat offered to idols, and others are not; both are in the same church. Tasting boredom or not experiencing personal spiritual growth are not sufficient reasons to separate. Looking for the best church choir in town is not a solid basis for entering covenantal relationships with other members.

Stay at what cost? I have known adults who intentionally stayed at weak churches in an effort to have a leavening effect. Meanwhile, other adults left those churches because of the influence on their children.

Separate at what cost? What impact will it have on the reputation of Christ as the obstacle-overcoming, faithfulness-engendering Reconciler? What will be the impact of uprooting of your family and your relationships in the church?

While separation may need to be considered in biblically warranted situations, each member should generally be working toward the strengthening of the church and the other members in it, not seeking exit strategies.

Sam Crabtree
Executive Pastor/Lead Pastor for Life Training