{"id":32005,"date":"2022-09-10T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/10-reasons-people-are-leaving-your-church\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:52:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:52:31","slug":"10-reasons-people-are-leaving-your-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/10-reasons-people-are-leaving-your-church\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Reasons People Are Leaving Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
chuttersnap photo – Unsplash <\/p>\n

By Tess Schoonhoven<\/em><\/p>\n

Why do people leave their churches? <\/p>\n

In a recent episode of Rainer on Leadership, part of the Lifeway Leadership Network podcast group, Thom Rainer reviews top responses to this question.<\/p>\n

Rainer says that the good news is that these are addressable issues. They shouldn\u2019t cultivate a \u2018woe is me\u2019 attitude. Along with some analysis, Rainer provides thoughts on how they can be addressed. <\/p>\n

1. They got out of the habit. <\/h3>\n

\u201cThere was no big crisis,\u201d Rainer says. <\/p>\n

These people simply begin to miss one or two services here and there and then eventually stop going altogether. <\/p>\n

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\u201cDiscipline is a close synonym with habit,\u201d Rainer says. And attending church is another discipline. <\/p>\n

The local church, at its biblical origins, is a place where people gathered together on a regular basis. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe simple thing to do here is to remind people consistently that the gathering together of the people of God is supposed to be one of their spiritual disciplines and a habit.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. They left after they graduated from high school.<\/h3>\n

This is a reality that has to be faced as a common reason for dropping out of church. <\/p>\n

But a helpful factor in keeping college students in church, Rainer suggests, is a thriving student ministry that stresses the importance of staying in church after going away to college. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be consistent in preparing them for life past high school,\u201d Rainer says.<\/p>\n

3. They decided they didn\u2019t like the institutional church.<\/h3>\n

There are people who presume that because the church is an institution, it has negative connotations. <\/p>\n

But if the church is an institution and a family, is it a right answer to then abandon loyalty to family because of dislike of institutions? <\/p>\n

Rainer says that the church is an institution that has remained prevalent throughout history because of the nature of its purpose and its founder [God]. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe church is one of those ordained institutions,\u201d Rainer says. \u201cOrdained by God, but also accepted by humanity throughout the ages.\u201d <\/p>\n

4. They were hurt at the church.<\/h3>\n

Although the reality of hurt from the church exists, Rainer says to remember the reason we come to church in the first place. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t come to church for the people, we come to the church for Christ,\u201d Rainer says. \u201cWe get benefits from the fellowship, but our motivation is for Christ, ultimately.\u201d <\/p>\n

And if our motivation to come is about Jesus and not the people, then our motivations to leave should not be based on the people either. <\/p>\n

However, we do have to understand the difficulty of rising above the pain when dealing with members who have experienced personal hurt from individual people within the church. <\/p>\n

5. They say they couldn\u2019t find a church to meet their needs.<\/h3>\n

This attitude approaches church with a consumer mentality. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want church because of what the church can do for us,\u201d Rainer says. \u201cWe go shopping.\u201d <\/p>\n

This is the practice of preferential Christianity\u2014church hopping without ever being satisfied.<\/p>\n

6. They had a need and felt the church didn\u2019t meet it.<\/h3>\n

Related to the previous answer Rainer says, \u201cit can be a general consumer mentality or it can be something specific that happened.\u201d <\/p>\n

Situations of grief over the loss of a loved one, for example, cannot be placed in the same boat as a simplistic consumer mentality. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many times that the church cannot meet the needs to the level emotionally, even in times of need, that some of these church members would desire,\u201d says Rainer.<\/p>\n

7. They never felt connected in the church.<\/h3>\n

\u201cSomeone who is not giving may not feel connected,\u201d Rainer says. <\/p>\n

These are people who are only expecting ministry, not participating in it, and who aren\u2019t in community groups or actively involved in the worship at the church. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe leadership needs to do everything it can, but connecting, largely, is going to be dependent on the church member and whether he or she is really proactive on getting involved in ministry,\u201d Rainer says.<\/p>\n

Members will almost always feel unconnected when they wait on the church to do something for them. <\/p>\n

8. They did not give to the church.<\/h3>\n

This pattern is detectable. Church leaders can have the person with the giving records give them warning signs when people begin to drift. <\/p>\n

With these known warnings signs, leaders can do things such as taking members to lunch or to hang out with that person, seeking to get at the root of issues with individuals that can hopefully prevent them from leaving the church. <\/p>\n

9. They left when their pastor left.<\/h3>\n

\u201cMost of the time it is just when someone\u2019s allegiance is tied too closely to a person rather than to Christ,\u201d Rainer says.<\/p>\n

We must be careful, Rainer adds, not to build churches on the platform of the pastor as a person instead of the mission of the church and the doctrine and the gospel. <\/p>\n

10. They moved and never went back to church.<\/h3>\n

This is the situation of a life disruption and people just never returned to church. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to find a new church in a new area and get plugged in with the new community. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow many of the formerly churched relocated and never connected with a church?\u201d Rainer asks. \u201cWhy did they take this path?\u201d<\/p>\n

How will your church approach these issues? <\/p>\n

TESS SCHOONHOVEN (@TessSchoonhoven)<\/strong> is an intern with <\/em>Facts & Trends and a recent graduate of California Baptist University.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep yours Alive<\/h2>\n

Thom S. Rainer<\/p>\n

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See also  The Power of the Ordinary Moments<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Related posts:<\/h3>\n
What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times? What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation? 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

chuttersnap photo – Unsplash By Tess Schoonhoven Why do people leave their churches? In a recent episode of Rainer on Leadership, part of the Lifeway Leadership Network podcast group, Thom Rainer reviews top responses to this question. Rainer says that the good news is that these are addressable issues. They shouldn\u2019t cultivate a \u2018woe is … Continue reading “10 Reasons People Are Leaving Your Church”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}