Leaving the church: what it is not

There’s a lot of talk about “saving the church” now, did you know? Evangelicals and mainline alike are scrambling to make sense of and act on the incoming data of huge numbers LEAVING churches across the board in America. Polls and surveys show that long-time church goers are just simply not going any more. And churches are feeling the impact and wondering out loud, what do we do?

The questions range from practical issues like paying the bills -How do we keep our doors open when tithes and offerings are so low- to deeper theological questions. Recently, I attended a church where the pastor started out his sermon talking about money but quickly followed it up by pointing out it doesn’t matter if you have all the money in the world if you aren’t bringing in the people. He even used the kids’ lesson I learned decades ago in Sunday school: here’s the church, here’s the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people, using your hands to make doors and all. It’s a cute mnemonic to remind us that the church is not just a building.

It got me thinking about people and what they truly mean to our ecclesiology.

1. Ensuring Denominations’ Future
2. Preserving a specific local church
3. Protecting a ministry or person’s reputation and legacy
4. Crushing “the culture” of the world
5. Silencing and shunning survivors of abusive systems
6. Attempting revivals without repentance

WHY do we want to “save” the church?

When church leaders decry the mass exit from our pews these days, we need to listen closer to what they are really upset about. Is it really from a place of deep concern and heartbreak for people who have been hurt and abused and shunned by their local congregation, their families, and their faith community? Sometimes we have to wonder what exactly leaders of ministries and churches are really most unsettled by in the grand scheme of the current church crisis.

When you love the church, as many of us truly do, we love the vision of what Jesus told us The Church – capital C- really is, what we do, how we engage and move through the world. The distinctiveness of The Church should be evident, as we are told throughout the New Testament, by our love and by our reasonableness and by our mission to seek and save the world.

But sometimes the mission gets sidetracked, doesn’t it? Sometimes the specific, particular expression of The Church at the local little c church gets conflated with something quite epic and grandiose visions of just how impactful a small group of people (or just one person which is extra dangerous) can be for the kingdom and the Gospel.

These visions and ideals will become a driving force behind everything a ministry does and every choice that is made will be pitched for these ideals to become “successful” and get the desired outcomes and results. This environment will be ripe for abuse.

As we continue thinking and talking about the current landscape of The Church in this time in history, we must be willing to address the elephants in the room of selfish ambition, greed, self-promotion, and an overly inflated sense of achievement for the sake of the Gospel. When you listen to those who want to bemoan the ever increasing demographics of those leaving church, listen for these clues. Listen for how they talk about those of us walking out on them. It’s like the ex you broke up with telling everyone it was all you. It really really wasn’t. It almost never is.

If you want to hear more about our journey, listen in to our podcast or reach out! We love hearing stories of those who have found their way out to the wilderness where we live these days too. We want to meet you and encourage you and commisserate and rage and dare to hope for better days ahead!

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