9 Reasons People Leave
the Church When the Church Isn't to Blame
Dear all,
This morning’s reading
and pondering included the above title. Reading it all the way thru the last
paragraph was quite interesting, especially as I observe many “Dropping out”
first hand in recent years.
I encourage you to read the essay completely, give it
some thought, and please do contribute feedback.
Sincerely,
EBB4
==/
July 29, 2015|6:45 am
They're
Leaving in Droves?
The question, "Why are people leaving the church?"
raises several issues critical to the health and life of the church, especially
the church in North America.
Once possessing a "favored place at the community table"
along with other community leaders, with portfolio and reputation to boot, the
church in North America is now hemorrhaging members at an alarming rate.
Further, the indifference toward the church by non-attenders and unbelievers
has been a shock to the often insulated and isolated members of an all too
often recalcitrant church. To make matters worse, most people in the church are
clueless as to the reasons for this indifference.
Recent studies have
recognized the difficulties facing the church in reaching a new generation of
unbelievers and unchurched people. In a recent summary of his new book in the
Lifeway publication Facts and Trends, Rise of the Nones: Understanding and
Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated, James E. White analyzes the challenge of reaching people who
are, at best, indifferent to the church and seemingly unmoved by the message of
the Gospel.
White notes ten characteristic of the "nones":
1) he is a he — women tend to be more open to
spiritual things, while men are more skeptical, less committal;
2) he is young;
3) he is white, although a growing number of
non-white persons are showing interest in religious traditions other than
Christianity;
4) he is not necessarily an atheist — God, at
best, is a universal spirit, a deist theological position;
5) he is not very religious — choosing not to
identify with an organized, religious body, while, at the same time he
considers himself spiritual;
6) he's most likely a Democrat;
7) he thinks abortion and same-gender
marriage should be legal — thereby turning traditional definitions of marriage
and family upside down and inside out;
8) he considers himself morally liberal to
moderate at best;
9) he is not necessarily hostile toward
religious institutions — institutions, he might say, too concerned with money and
power; these institutions are non-essential; and,
10) he is more than likely a Westerner —
someone located west of the Mississippi River.
White's analysis of the current religious terrain reflects the
research by such respected institutions as Barna Research Group, Lifeway
Research, and other reputable groups that analyze such data.
In sum, White said people are leaving the church because:
1) the church is too narrow-minded and
unbending on moral issues;
2) the church is more interested in propping
up the institution of the church rather than fulfilling the mission of the
church;
3) the church is legalistic and not gracious
and merciful enough;
4) the church has isolated itself from the
lives of real people and is, therefore, disconnected from the reality of life;
5) the church is anti-intellectual, rejecting
the claims of science and modernity;
6) the church is antiquated in its
methodologies, methodologies that were effective at one time but are no longer
essential and effective;
7) the church is not very warm and loving,
failing to recognize people want intimate and personal settings for
relationship building in order to work out their spiritual and personal issues,
not systems that are large, cumbersome, and unwieldy — and the list could go on
as to why people are leaving the church.
The church in North America is in trouble.
But
Is That the Whole Story?
While I agree with many
of the criticisms that are leveled at the church, I would like to look at the
question — "Why are people leaving the church?" — from a different
angle.
What troubles me most
about this question is that the church is usually the one on trial rather than
the motives of the unchurched and unbelieving. Why is the church always on
trial? Why is the church always in question? Why are the motives of the church
always under the spotlight and never the motives of the unbelieving community?
It goes without saying that the church does put itself in the bulls-eye by
claiming to have exclusive rights on the truth. Yet, is it fair to always blame
the church? I think not.
I want to offer an alternative list of answers to the question —
"Why are people leaving the church?" — that may explain the
indifference many have to the church itself and the gospel she preaches.
1) People leave the church because the gospel
way is truly narrow. "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and
the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who
find it are few" (Mt. 7:13-14). Why
are we surprised when people decide not to enter the narrow way of salvation
that leads to eternal life? To enter the narrow way means that we have to drop
everything to follow Christ.
2) People leave the church because the gospel
requires repentance and faith; the gospel is about turning away from sin/self
and turning by faith to the Savior, a repentance and faith that is not about
self-fulfillment or self-actualization. "For godly grief produces a
repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief
produces death" (2 Cor. 7:10).
Repentance requires self-denial, the very thing most sinners dislike. Faced
with the call to repent, it is easy for the sinner to accuse the church of
being narrow-minded and unloving when, in actuality, it is simply being true to
the gospel message.
3) People leave the church because of the
demands of holy living. While holiness can morph into legalism, it is also true that holiness is the by-product
of the Spirit's work in the life of the believer. We are called to be holy (1
Pt. 1:16), to reflect the character of Jesus Christ as a by-product of the
Spirit's work (Gal. 5:22ff.). The label of legalism is too easy of an
accusation to be used against the church, especially when that charge is
motivated by unholy people for unholy purposes. To be holy is critical to the
Christian life. "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the
holiness without which no one will see the Lord." (Heb. 12:14) Holiness doesn't mean isolation.
Holiness means to be set apart for a special or specific purpose; it means to
reflect the very character of God. One can be holy and be connected to real
life at the same time. If holiness means isolation from the world then it has
misunderstood the meaning of holiness.
4) People leave the church because they are
not truly rooted and grounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While many people
give the appearance of "being saved" for a season; time and truth
have a way of exposing the true nature of a person's profession of faith, a
faith commitment that may be disingenuous and inauthentic, where the person "has no
root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution
arises on account of the word, immediately falls away" (Mt. 13:21).
5) People leave the church because a
"gospel-less commitment" is eventually overcome by "the cares
of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves
unfaithful" (Mt. 13:22). They
have no appetite for the things of God because their appetites for the world
have not been curtailed or assuaged.
6) People leave the church because their
understanding of the gospel does not comprehend the nature of gospel
commitment, consecration, and endurance. As a result, many 'try out'
Christianity to see if it works for them, without truly understanding the gospel,
soon departing when they realize that the gospel is not all about
"me" but about the Lordship of Jesus Christ: "Children,
it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now
many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They
went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain
that they all are not of us" (1 Jn. 2:18-19).
7) People leave the church because they love
the world and their own lives more than they love Jesus Christ. They fail to
understand that Christianity is not about self-fulfillment, self-actualization,
or a some grandiose social project; instead, the gospel is not about making bad
men good or good men better – Christianity is about making dead men live, about
life transformation (Eph. 2:1-10; Rom. 12:1-2). Many people are O.K. with being
God-centered so long a God is man-centered or me-centered. It is a hard thing
to be radically God-centered. It is a shocking truth for many to discover that
while God's gracious work for us and in us through Jesus Christ brings with it
many benefits, in the end, all things are for God's glory, a glory he will not
share with anyone (Isa. 48:11).
8) People leave the church because the church
resists the desire for the individual to build a smorgasbord belief system,
picking and choosing those things they like about Christianity and rejecting
those truths about Christianity that may be less-desirable, on their way to
constructing a personal theology that is more individualistic than biblical.
This could be what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he wrote these
penetrating words to Timothy: "For the time will come when people will not endure
sound teaching (doctrine), but having itching ears they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from
listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Tim. 4:3-4). While there is great
latitude for individual self-expression and giftedness, we are not allowed to
make up our own theological or belief system or to separate out the things we
like about Christianity from the things we don't like. Some people leave when
they realize that there is a "faith that was once for all delivered to the
saints" (Jude 3), a faith
that is the sum and substance of the Gospel itself and that cannot be
substituted by a diminished or degraded Gospel.
9) Finally, people leave the church because
they are unconverted. They need to be saved. Genuine salvation presupposes many
of the aforementioned points.
In
Summary
While the church is not innocent when it comes to accounting for
the many reasons people leave the church, it should also be said that those who
leave the church carry with them a great degree of duplicity and guilt in this
matter. The church is not solely to blame. In fact, we should not be surprised
when people leave, especially those whose hearts have not been truly
transformed by a well-articulated, well-understood Gospel that aims at redirecting
the self from sin to the Savior, a turning that produces a level of commitment
and consecration that can endure the challenges of living a holy life in an
unholy world and the often ugly nature of a church that is all too imperfect.
Dr. Kevin Shrum is
pastor of Inglewood Baptist Church and Assistant Part-time Professor of
Religious Studies at Union University, Hendersonville Campus
