When should you leave a church?

Question 09029.

Deciding whether to leave a church is one of the loneliest decisions a Christian makes, and it is usually made badly. People stay far too long in places that are damaging them, or they walk out over something that would have been settled by one honest conversation. Both mistakes hurt, and both are avoidable.

So let me try to sort the reasons into three groups: those that require it, those that may justify it, and those that will not bear the weight. Then I want to say something about how to go, because the manner of leaving often matters more than the decision itself.

When You Must Leave a Church

There are situations where staying is not faithfulness but complicity. The first is the loss of the gospel. If the church denies the deity of Jesus, the bodily resurrection, or salvation by grace through faith, then whatever else it offers, it is no longer preaching the message that saves. Galatians 1:8 and 9 pronounces a curse on any other gospel, and you cannot sit under a curse indefinitely and call it loyalty.

The second is unrepentant, serious sin in the leadership that the church refuses to address. Not a leader who has fallen and is being dealt with, but a leader who is sinning openly while the structure protects him. The third is a pattern of spiritual abuse: control, intimidation, the punishment of questions. And the fourth is straightforward danger, whether to you or to your children. In each of these cases, to leave a church is the right and obedient thing to do.

When You May Rightly Leave a Church

There is a broader category where leaving is legitimate without being obligatory. A genuine and settled doctrinal difference is one. If you have come to convictions about baptism or church government that your congregation does not share, moving to a church that matches them is honest rather than disloyal, provided you go without campaigning first.

Moving house is another, and so is a persistent inability to be fed. If you have sat under preaching for years that never opens the Bible, and you have raised it graciously and nothing has changed, you may leave a church for that with a clear conscience. Family circumstances count too. A congregation with nothing at all for your teenagers may be a reason to move, though I would want you to consider building something before concluding there is nothing to build with.

Reasons That Will Not Do

Now the harder list. You should not leave a church because you have been offended and have not gone to the person concerned. Matthew 18 comes before the exit, not after it. You should not leave over music, decor, the timing of the service, or the fact that you were not asked to do something you wanted to do. You should not leave because a friendship has cooled or because somebody irritating has joined.

And you should not leave a church because it is hard. Churches go through dry seasons, difficult transitions and painful years, and the members who stay through those are the ones who make recovery possible. Hebrews 10:24 and 25 tells us not to neglect the episunagoge, the gathering together, as is the habit of some. The assumption throughout the New Testament is commitment, not consumption. My article on religious consumerism goes further into this.

The Question Underneath the Question

Very often, when somebody asks me whether they should leave a church, the real question is different. It is: am I allowed to stop being unhappy? It is: does anybody notice me here? It is: I am exhausted and I want permission to stop. Those are worth naming, because moving to another building will not answer any of them.

I would ask you to test your own heart before you test the church. Have you been in a season where nothing has fed you, including your Bible and your prayers? Are you carrying something that would follow you across town? Sometimes the discontent is genuinely about the church, and sometimes the church is where a deeper weariness has surfaced. Both need attention, but they need different attention.

There is another version of this that ministers see often. A person is convinced that God is telling them to leave a church, and the conviction arrived shortly after a disagreement. I am not saying the leading is false. I am saying that our hearts are quite capable of dressing a preference in spiritual clothing, and that this is precisely the sort of decision the New Testament expects us to test with other believers rather than alone.

Before You Decide

Do three things. First, pray about it long enough that the decision is not being made in a bad week. Second, talk to your leaders honestly. Many people leave a church without anyone ever knowing what was wrong, which robs the leadership of any chance to put it right and robs you of the answer you might have received. Third, take counsel from one or two mature believers who will tell you the truth rather than agree with you.

And read the signs of an unhealthy church and the marks of a true church side by side. Weighing your situation against a written standard is far more reliable than weighing it against how you happen to feel on a Sunday afternoon. The NET Bible notes on Hebrews 10 are worth a look on the assembling passage.

How to Leave a Church Well

Go and tell them. In person, to the pastor or an elder, before anybody else hears it. Say what has led you to the decision, plainly and without a list of grievances collected over five years. If there is something they ought to know for the good of the church, say it once, clearly, and then leave it with them.

Then go quietly. Do not recruit. Do not spend your last months making sure everyone knows why you are unhappy. If people ask, tell them briefly and without inviting them to follow. A church can survive a family leaving; it takes far longer to recover from a family that leaves loudly. And keep your mouth shut about it afterwards, in the new church especially, where nobody can check your account.

If You Are on the Receiving End

Ministers, we take this badly and we should be honest about it. When a family goes, it feels like a verdict, and the temptation is to explain them away before they have got to the car park. Resist it. Ask them to tell you the truth, listen without defending yourself, and thank them for the years they gave. Some of what they say will be unfair and some of it will be exactly right.

And let them go without punishment. No cold shoulder, no pointed remarks from the pulpit, no dropping them from the prayer list as though they had died. How a church treats those who leave a church is watched closely by everyone still in the room, and it tells them what would happen to them.

It also helps to remember that some departures are entirely healthy. A family sent out to plant, a member moving for work, a couple joining a congregation nearer their aging parents: these are not losses in any spiritual sense, and treating every exit as a wound teaches a congregation to be possessive. Churches exist to send as well as to gather.

If You Have Already Left Badly

A good many people reading this will have gone the wrong way already, some of them years ago, and are still carrying it. If that is you, the road back is simpler than you fear. An honest word to the person you wronged, without qualifying it into an excuse, resolves more than you would expect.

And if you have not been anywhere since, do not let a bad experience become a settled habit. There are believers in this country who left a church a decade ago and have never joined another, and the drift is almost always downward. I have written separately on whether it is ever right to leave a church, which covers the manner of going in more detail.

So, now what?

If you are weighing this now, write down your reasons and put the list somewhere for a fortnight. Then read it again and ask which of them would still look serious to a wise friend. That simple exercise has stopped more unnecessary departures than any sermon I have preached on the subject.

If you have concluded that you must leave a church, do it cleanly, quickly and kindly, and be in another congregation within a month. Do not take a sabbatical from God’s people to recover from God’s people. Who could you speak to this week before the decision hardens?

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)