Is It Ever Right to Leave a Church, and How Should It Be Done?

Question 09091

The decision to leave a church is one that most believers face at some point, and it is usually made badly. Some go too soon, at the first friction, and repeat the pattern in every congregation they join. Others stay far too long under teaching that is starving them, out of loyalty to people rather than to Christ.

I write this as a minister who has watched people go, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not, and who has felt both the relief and the grief of it. What follows is meant to help you think, and to help you act in a way you will not be ashamed of in five years.

Start With a Presumption Against It

My first counsel is that the burden of proof lies with leaving. The New Testament knows nothing of a consumer approach to congregations, in which a believer moves when the fit is no longer comfortable. Commitment is meant to be costly and durable, and a great deal of Christian growth happens precisely through staying in a place that is difficult.

Think about what you are actually part of. A congregation is a body, and the removal of a limb is major surgery rather than a change of preference. That framing alone would prevent perhaps half the departures I have seen. Ask first whether the problem is one you could help solve by staying rather than one you must escape.

It also matters that leaving affects other people. Your departure will unsettle those who trusted your judgement, will grieve those who love you, and may confirm somebody else’s drift. That is not a reason never to leave a church. It is a reason to weigh it as a decision with consequences beyond yourself.

Reasons That Justify It

There are circumstances where leaving is not only permitted but required. The clearest is when the gospel is no longer preached. Where a pulpit denies the deity of Jesus, the resurrection, or salvation by grace through faith, you are not being fed and your family is being formed by something other than Christianity. Paul’s warning in Galatians 1:8-9 is not decoration.

Persistent, serious, unaddressed sin in the leadership is a second reason, particularly where it has been raised properly and dismissed. So is a leadership that has become controlling in the way Peter forbids when he tells elders not to domineer over those in their charge (1 Peter 5:3). So is a congregation that will not exercise any discipline at all, so that scandalous sin sits unchallenged among the members.

There are also legitimate reasons that involve no fault. A house move, a call to serve elsewhere, a church plant that needs people, a marriage that requires one partner to move. Nobody should feel guilty about leaving a church for reasons like these, and a healthy congregation will send such members with a blessing.

Reasons That Do Not

Now the harder list. Personal offence with another member is not a reason to leave a church; it is a reason to obey Matthew 18:15 and go and speak to them. Music you dislike is not a reason. A preacher less gifted than the last one is not a reason. A decision that went against you at a members’ meeting is not a reason, and a believer who leaves over that has told the congregation something about himself.

Neither is the vague sense that you are not being fed, at least not without examination. Sometimes that complaint is accurate and serious. Often it means that the hearer has stopped reading his Bible during the week and is expecting Sunday to do all the work, or that he has developed a taste for a particular style of teaching he can find online.

I would put it bluntly. If the same reason has caused you to leave a church three times, the constant factor is not the churches.

Before You Decide

Do several things before concluding. Pray about it over a period of time rather than in the heat of a disappointment, and resist making the decision in the fortnight after the thing that upset you. Talk to a mature believer outside the situation who will tell you the truth rather than agree with you.

Then speak to the leadership honestly about your concerns. This is the step most often skipped and the one that most often changes the outcome. Elders cannot address what they have not been told, and a great many departures happen over matters that could have been resolved in a single conversation, or at least understood differently.

Ask yourself as well what you have contributed. It is easier to criticise a congregation you have never served in, and the members who complain most are frequently the ones carrying least. That is uncomfortable to write and I have found it consistently true.

How to Leave a Church Well

If you do conclude that you should go, the manner matters enormously. Tell the leadership first, in person, before you tell anybody else. Explain your reasons plainly and without a speech. Give them the opportunity to respond, and listen properly to what they say even if it does not change your mind.

Do not campaign. The great damage in these situations is rarely the departure itself but the conversations on the way out, in which a leaving member gathers sympathy and leaves a residue of suspicion behind. If you have concerns that the congregation genuinely needs to know, raise them through the proper channel. If they are simply your reasons, keep them between you and the leadership.

Ask for a commendation to your new congregation. That practice appears in the New Testament, where Paul commends Phoebe to the church at Rome (Romans 16:1-2), and it turns a departure into a transfer. It also settles the question of whether you are leaving in good standing, which protects everybody.

Going Somewhere, Not Just Away

One firm rule. Do not leave a church without joining another. The believer who steps out intending to find somewhere in due course very often finds nowhere, and six months of Sundays at home does more spiritual damage than the situation he left.

Have the new congregation identified before you go if you possibly can. Visit, meet the leadership, ask about doctrine and practice. Choose on the basis of the gospel preached, the Bible honoured, the ordinances kept and the members cared for, rather than on the basis of facilities and music. I have set out the marks worth looking for in what makes a church biblical.

Leaving Without Bitterness

Where the departure follows real hurt, the danger is not the leaving but what you carry out of the door. Bitterness is a root that defiles many (Hebrews 12:15), and a believer who arrives at a new church rehearsing the failures of the old one poisons the ground he has just been planted in.

Forgive before you go, as far as it lies with you, and be careful how you tell the story afterwards. You will be asked why you moved, and a short, honest, uncensorious answer serves everybody. There is almost never a good reason to give a detailed account of another congregation’s failures to people who cannot do anything about them.

And do not let one bad experience redefine the church for you. The failure you encountered was real, and it was a failure of particular people rather than a demonstration that the whole thing is false.

For Those Who Are Staying

A closing word for the many who are wondering whether to leave a church and will decide to stay. Staying is not passive. If you remain, remain properly, which means serving, giving, praying for the leadership and refusing to run a quiet commentary on everything you disapprove of.

Some of the most fruitful ministries I know have been exercised by members who stayed through a poor season and were still there when things turned. Congregations are not usually reformed by the people who left. They are reformed by the people who stayed and prayed.

So, now what?

If you are weighing this now, write down your actual reasons and hold them against the two lists above. Then speak to your elders before you speak to anybody else, and give the conversation a real chance rather than treating it as a formality.

And if you are staying, decide that too, rather than leaving the question permanently open. A believer who is always half considering whether to leave a church never fully invests in the one he is in, and the congregation feels it long before he admits it to himself.

If you have already left somewhere badly, it is not too late to write a letter, apologise for the manner of it, and put the relationship right. That is a hard thing to do and I have never known anybody regret it. Related reading: when you should leave a church and signs of an unhealthy church.

If you were to leave your congregation this year, what would the people you leave behind say about the way you did it?

Above all, do not leave a church in the week you are angriest. Almost nobody regrets waiting a month, and a great many people regret the letter they sent on a Sunday evening.

Let all things be done for building up. But all things should be done decently and in order.

1 Corinthians 14:26, 40 (ESV)