The author of Hebrews warned against missing corporate worship and yet, people are not only missing church, they are leaving for good in fairly large numbers. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:25 | NLT Those leaving are losing out spiritually and relationally and churches are hurting financially. What’s going on? What causes a person who has been taught the importance of Christian fellowship to walk out the back door? I would argue that there are many reasons people offer for leaving, but only one underlying cause.
The most recent reason suggested is that folks simply got out of the habit of attending church during the pandemic. Perhaps they discovered the world doesn’t end if they miss a Sunday service. Or it may be that they found it is more convenient to watch from home in their pajamas. After all, when they stay home, there is no implicit obligation to say anything to those seated around them and no one passes an offering plate. Still the doors of the church remain open. And the heat and light bills haven’t stopped. Many churches are hemorrhaging people and we, those of us who remain, must do our part to stop the bleeding. And that involves more than simply giving more money.
Even before COVID, people were leaving churches for a myriad of reasons. But the virus introduced a new one—politics. People began leaving over wearing masks, vaccinations or the fact people were too “woke,” whatever that now means. Long-standing church relationships were sacrificed on the altar of partisan politics. In his blog, N.T. Wright summed it up like this:
“Lifetime friends have divided over the past year or so with no plausible pathway to reconcile. And, of course, pastors in congregations are in the middle of the rancor and nastiness trying to hold their people together with a focus that is beyond the campaigns and election. But I know how much of a toll that takes on shepherds of the flock. In the U.S., it is not very hard to find a congregation and a pastor who is ‘on the same page’ politically. Thus, it is not unusual for people to leave their congregations because of political loyalties.
Most of those who left for political reasons did not abandon church altogether. Many left their former churches for those where most people share similar political views. They left but landed in another community of faith. I call them “sortas.” They “sorta” follow Jesus, but their actions indicate that they view politics as being more effective in achieving God’s will than prayer. And the person in the White House is more trustworthy than a prayer-answering God. We’ll come back to the “sortas” later. What about those who have left church for good? They will be the primary focus of this article.
A November 29, 2022 bulletin issued by the Office for National Statistics United Kingdom, indicating a census finding that England and Wales were no longer Christian majority countries. On December 1, 2022, the Catholic News Agency highlighted the dramatic decline in those two countries from 71.7% in 2001 to 46.2% today. Shortly thereafter, the December 2022 edition of Christianity Today included a book review by Arthur E. Farnsley II, of Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant, an author who lives and works in Britain.
The same thing is happening in the United States. According to Pew Research Center only 65% of Americans identified as Christians in 2019, down from 77% in 2009. The situation is even worse than it might appear when considering practicing Christians. According to the Barna Group, practicing Christians are characterized by “calling oneself a Christian, strongly prioritizing faith and regular church attendance.” That number has fallen from 45% in 2000 to 25% just twenty years later. And there is little doubt that number has dropped even more in the ensuing twenty-two years.
According to Farnsley, in the first part of his two-part book, Bullivant describes the experiences of “nones,” those who had left Christianity and now consider themselves as having no religious affiliation. This is a very different group from those he calls “cradle nones,” people who have never had a church affiliation. The second part of the book describes why and how the church exodus occurred. He noted many of those who have left organized religion did so for strong, often emotional or painful reasons.
I want to focus on a statement Farnsley makes. “If you pay attention to much religious journalism, you can correctly guess what soured ex-Mormons, ex mainliners, exvangelicals, and ex Catholics on the religion of their youth.” What I have read fairly coincides with my experience. But we should keep in mind that not everybody who leaves church, leaves Jesus behind. As a chaplain I have heard many reasons folks have left the church of their youth, but they generally fall into four categories: the Bible, the money, the people, and/or the message.
For some it was the incongruence between science and biblical accounts. This typically occurs when literal meaning is the test for inerrancy. Essentially, those who leave for this reason are saying, “If I can’t believe in Jonah, I can’t believe in Jesus.” They fail to recognize that the Bible was not written to be a science textbook. It is an ancient text written to an ancient people containing many literary genres.
Must we accept, literally, a passage such as this? You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.Isaiah 55:12 | NIV Obviously, mountains don’t have voices and trees lack arms and hands. We, as Bible teachers, have an obligation to identify and explain the hyperbole and genre contained in the passages we are teaching and allow, when appropriate, for alternative interpretations.
Another frequently cited reason people leave is money. Whether it is the consistent pleas for people to give or the lack of transparency regarding how contributions are distributed, money is often a friction point. And it has been throughout the history of the Church. And the larger the church the more of a problem it is.
The rationale for giving should be included in the discipleship process, but not part of the evangelistic outreach. That presents a problem in seeker-sensitive churches that lack an effective discipleship process. Giving is a family matter best left to a venue that includes members and regular attenders, not first or second-time visitors. And when it comes to money, absolute transparency is key. Jesus, not the light bill, is the message. Fixing this disconnect is the responsibility of church leadership (e.g., deacons, elders, session, etc.).
Finally, the most frequently cited reason for leaving church for good is the people, or rather, the “hypocrites” who warm the pews of every church. And, brothers and sisters, those hypocrites are us. By far, the greatest disincentive to Christian affiliation is the behavior of other Christians. Is our church defined by what we are for, rather than what we are against?
How encouraging have we been to one another? Instead of befriending and lifting people up as they enter the front door, are are pushing them out the back door? Apparently that is the case, especially with younger prople. Why can’t we see that we are the reason they left? We are all sinners and pharisees in recovery. Can’t we just take off our masks and allow others to see the person God sees?
Those who leave because of our phoniness know they are not the perfect people many of us are pretending to be. They must be let in on our dirty, little secret. And that secret is we are all on the same journey. We all stumble. We all fall. But as members of one body, we rely on others to reach down and help us back on our feet. It is our failure to acknowledge our own weakness that comes across as hypocrisy. And it is our reluctance to extend a hand to help that makes them feel unwelcome and alone.
It is time we Jesus-followers become vulnerable and make our churches feel more like a hospital for sinners, rather than a sanctuary for saints. People hungering for something to believe in don’t come to church to feel isolated, inferior, or to play yet another role in life. They just want to be seen, heard, and understood. This can only be corrected when we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow the leading of his Spirit in our interactions with others both inside and outside the church.
Finally, and I believe this is the underlying reason people, including the “sortas” leave the church, regardless of any other rationale they might offer. They leave because they have never had a genuine, personal encounter with Jesus. They have never recognized and admitted they are sinners, repented and accepted God’s offer of grace and reconciliation. They have no relationship with a living, loving God. Their god is religion. Religion is what remains when we take our eyes off Jesus and go through the motions of church. It points to never having fully surrendered to him by making him both lord and savior.
When the focus is on flawed people and flawed institutions rather than Jesus, disillusionment is inevitable. Jesus must be our sole focus. We must be all in, completely surrendered, to him. Anyone or anything else is an idol that erects a wall between us and God.
If we hold anything back, if we allow ourselves to worry or be afraid about anything, we are not followers. We are still “sortas,” worshipping idols. When totally surrendered, it doesn’t matter who sits next to us, how the church money is raised and spent or whether we believe the world was created in seven, 24-hour days. All that matters is our unshakable faith in Jesus and our desire to be more like him.
The only time we should leave a community of faith is unbiblical teaching or the leading of the Spirit to service elsewhere. It is time started walking our talk and we changed our focus, not our church.
Recent Comments