7 Things To Reflect On When Planning To Leave A Church You Used To Love
Planning to leave a church can frustrate you, but sometimes it is bound to happen, however, deciding the right way helps. Do you feel it is time to leave one church for another because of one or more personal reasons? Taking a rush decision can devastate you for a long time. Take a deep breath and let us think through this together.
This decision needs to total reflection. Departing a church you used to love can be a tricky one. It is one of the tricky choices Christians have made in the past, and others will be tempted to make soon. Don’t make it harder by doing it badly.
Leaving a church is not limited to only pastors or men of God. Many Christian brothers and sisters take the same decision. Often this may be necessitated by heartbreaking reason, the need to go to school far away from home, and the change in location.
Often these persons planning to leave a church they love have spent nearly their whole lives building this very church. This excludes church-hoppers, bored believers, or shallow saints.
Those who have tough times making this decision are often individuals who have spent so many years contributing to ministry, church growth, and held positions that demanded their toil and sacrifice.
Planning to leave a church is like leaving God’s work unfinished hence some Christians would go through the dry moments to fix the issues. Others will not do that.
READ: The Absence of God’s Presence in the life of the 21st Century Christian
Before you make the decision whether to stay or separate from a church God called you into and into which you have invested your life consider the following.
#1 Talk to the church leadership first. Do not decide alone, you need the leadership to talk you out of this decision as practicable as possible. The challenge could be resolved and you may end up not leaving the church.
#2 Leave the church you love for only the right reasons
Many have moved out of the church they loved and entered worse places because they gave the wrong reasons for the need to leave.
#3 Leave the church you love in a clean and kind manner
If you have to live at all cost, then do it in a clean manner and ensure you don’t destroy the church with your comments, actions, and choices.
#4 Don’t separate yourself from the spiritual and social life that the church provides you, think through the healthy Christian fellowship and relationships you have built before you make the move.
#5 Ask yourself if you have what it takes to start all over in a new church as a new unknown Christian.
#6 No one has achieved a 100% smooth ride in any church and you are not alone. You have to learn to overcome the bad times and rediscover Jesus in the bad situation that is pushing you away.
#7 Make no mistake of demonizing the church you intend to leave nor over idealize a new church you don’t know too well when you are thinking of leaving.
If you are planning to leave a church and you are convinced that you want to depart from the church, you love, pray, fast about it, and seek the face and purpose of God.
Source: GospelSermons.org
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