Over the past few months you have likely read one or more
articles about why people are leaving your church. Perhaps it was about the “done with church” group, or 5
things that make visitors leave. Perhaps
you’ve read about why people don’t sing or engage in worship or how the
“Millennial Generation” is no longer interested in church. I know I’ve read many of these
articles…
..and I started believing all of them.
I mean I REALLY BELIEVED all of them. Something in the words of these
wonderful authors resonated with me and I began to see all the issues they were
writing about.
MY CHURCH WAS DYING!!!
And these articles could “fix it.”
Ok, I need to confess here that I don’t have any clue why
people are (aren’t) leaving your church.
My guess is that when someone leaves your church it’s because they don’t
want to go there anymore. I know
that sounds simple, but stop and think about it. Trying to answer “why” someone chooses a certain behavior is
the subject of much disagreement by people who are trained in and study human
behavior. Maybe they didn’t like
the music. Maybe they didn’t like
the coffee. Maybe they found the
sermon to “shallow”…or to “deep” to understand. Maybe they are filled with so much hurt from being kicked
around by the world that they aren’t ready to face it yet. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I was convinced my church was
“broken” and dying.
This past Sunday night we had a “family meeting” – we
invited everyone to come and talk about vision, purpose and overall church
health. We broke into small groups
with leaders in each. Our goal as
leaders was to simply listen. We
even used the questions one of those articles had suggested we should ask
people. I was prepared for
eye-opening honesty, as we asked people what they “really thought.”
I was shocked.
Not is a bad way, but in a good way. I listen to friends share about the “family” our church had
become for them. They talked about
how much they enjoyed the teaching and appreciated the youth ministry. They spoke of acceptance they had not
found in other places. One
mentioned that she had thought about going other places (or not going to a
church at all), but God had not released her from her family. We laughed. We cried. We
acknowledged that there is still Kingdom work to do in our community. As I listened, I was encouraged. I was hopeful.
Then it hit me: I had developed church-hypochondria.
I had spent so much time reading about all the “problems” with
churches that I was looking for any “symptom” that could explain what was wrong
with my church and how we could fix it.
When we actually stopped and listened, we found a group of people who
love God, love people and are looking to us, as leaders, to help them move this
message into their community. They
are looking for someone to bring them from where they are, to where they want
to go.
We’re not dying.
Maybe you’re not either. Maybe we need to spend an equal amount of time looking for
and celebrating the lives that are being renewed and transformed, as we spend
reading about and looking for what’s wrong. Maybe we need to worry equally about those who are “done”
and those who would “come”.
Perhaps we could spend less time trying to make the church experience
“perfect” and more time loving on everyone around us.
My church isn’t dying…it’s alive in Christ.
May we live and serve in churches, bodies of believers, who
are sent to share hope and light to the world.
