Wow! What started as a simple question that I decided to ask (check it out here) has turned into a mini-series of questions. I’ve really enjoyed all of your comments and insights on what you believe the church should do really well and what, if they tanked at, would cause you to leave.
My last question (well, hopefully my last) is for the many people who have shared that they’ve already left the church. I know a surprising number of people who have decided to stop attending for one reason or another. Many of them have really good reasons for doing so.
My question today is this: what would it take to get you back to church? More solid teaching? Meaningful friendships? Better worship? An apology from your pastor?
What would it take?
OK go.
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this is what would bring me back:
Understanding of Preeminence and simplicity of Christ.
I know a TON of people who understand the preeminence and simplicity of Christ and opt out of sitting in a chair to listen to music and sermons on Sunday mornings.
thank you, 🙂 probably i should do better explanation but lets leave it as is.
blessings!
For me, it would take the feeling that something happens at church that doesn’t happen elsewhere. There has to be something that exists within context of Sunday morning church that i can’t replicate via a sermon podcast, worship music on my ipod, or fantastic conversations with fellow christians over copy.
Hey Lee!
My mom found your blog and after taking a look at it myself I thought I would write. I just recently completely left two local churches I’d been attending – and decided not to go to any local church. I was inspired to write this poem after my experiences: http://toventureall.blogspot.com/2010/05/church.html And then wrote the following letter in response to a former friend from a local church who asked me the question, “What is leaving the Church going to solve?” when I told her I was leaving finally. Thought it may interest you since you seem to be on a quirky quest here. 🙂 Oh, and have you read ‘Born for Battle’ by Arthur Mathews? The best book I’ve found on prayer — written from experience/living it out. Anyway, here’s my answer to her question:
Hm… well, imagine I was dating a guy who wasn’t passionately pursuing God (he says he’s a Christian, but God isn’t the main thing he’s about) and I said, “I’m breaking up with Bob… this is the 4th guy I’ve dated who’s told me he wants God but whose actions prove he loves the world still, and I’m giving up on dating, giving up on looking for ‘the one’, and I’m going to wait and just seek God alone until some guy comes along (be it God’s Will to team me up) and really proves to me he’s different and what I’m looking for.”
I feel like that’s what I’m saying about local churches. Yes, I am still aching in my heart for God’s Church, like I am hoping someday to meet a guy who truly loves God and loves me, but it feels wrong to me to keep trying to go to churches who I get the impression are like “Bob”, like I would feel wrong about dating guys to look for the guy God has for me. I feel like I’ve been looking in the wrong places for God’s Church — like I’ve been looking among religious people. I have a theory about the Church and about marriage that possibly if I seek God wholeheartedly and obey His commands to go out and witness, to love the poor, to rescue those sentenced to death, to love Scripture (“But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”), that He will cause my path to cross with others who are doing the same thing — perhaps even my future husband (“…and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33).
So, to answer, “What is leaving the church going to solve?”… I think it will accomplish the same thing as breaking up with Bob would. I’m not ready for my future husband, to meet him were God to bring him along, if I am involved with a substitute for him. I think it makes me free to serve God (I’ve been doing evangelism and pro-life ministry on Sundays and Fridays when I would be at church) and thus meet/be ready to meet His true Church.
I’m not saying that no one at [the local church] is God’s true Church. I just think… I think it’s like if you invited me to a weekly concert at [the local church] and I said I wasn’t going… I think that’s all I’m missing by not joining God’s true people at [the local church]. I feel like it’s geared so much like a show now that there isn’t time left for us to “be” the Church there so it’s not really a Church gathering. When was the last time we prayed together for the church or the city for an hour, when was the last time we opened our Bibles and discussed how to live something out as a community that God commands of us, when was the last time we actually did what the leaders say “someday we will” do and stayed just to worship the Savior all night?
[The local church] canceled all the 1st Thurs. and 1st Tues. prayer meetings for the summer right after [the annual week of prayer and fasting] and all the preaching about praying. After the preaching [the teaching pastor] did about praying, we should be trying to live it out as a community more than ever, doing the opposite of canceling the monthly prayer meetings. Why are people asking why I don’t want to go to church anymore as if that makes me not part of the Church — I’m doing more to be the Church during church hours than many people are within the church walls — does it really matter where I am? I think the more important question is, why aren’t the people in the churches being the Church — and when will they join me?
If I could find a group at [the local church] (or any other local church) that actually in practical ways put God first, made God all they are about, proved they want to be disciples who put nothing before God and are taking up their cross and following literally in the Footsteps of Jesus, proved their faith by their actions (James 2), I would know them by their fruit, by their love, and I would be there, but I just can’t find them. People seem to want to go to church a couple times a week, but not to make any really big sacrifices that take away from other areas of their life to “be” the Church — like, to meet together every day as the early church did, to get together and just fervently pray for a few hours together once a week, to go out and share God’s Love with girls walking into abortion clinics, to give everything they don’t truly need to the poor.
Going to local church services now, for me, feels like going to a Christian concert and sermon at a local church building, and then hanging out afterwards. It’s not a gathering where we act like the Church. We don’t hear a truth and then get together afterwards and say, “Seriously, we need to live this out — let’s go to Starbucks right now and share the Gospel with someone or go home right now and get together everything that wastes our time to get rid of it or let’s pray all night until all of us are assured, Biblically, that we are on the narrow path so that we can move forward as a holy people.” I’ve tried to talk to people about the sermons and say, “Let’s both do something about this!” but they just say, “Yeah, I should pray more or be a better witness or give more to the church… anyway, what did you do this week — anything fun?” Being there, if anything, seems to waste my time in conversations like that when I could be being the Church someplace else — I’ve tried for a while and leaving seems to be the only way to solve the problem of being someplace where I don’t feel I can really be the Church and everyone I talk to doesn’t seem to want to be the Church any more than they already are, who just want to give a little more and a little more to God instead of forsaking all to truly be His disciples no turning back, when I should be just ignoring the modern notions of what church is (i.e. a building, a band, etc.) and just simply obeying God and being the Church (whether people accept invitations to join me in that or not).