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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Leave a Good Church for a Bad One

Heb 12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

I know a pastor who changed the mid-week service from Wednesday to Thursday night in order to schedule some good men for our mid-week service that ordinarily would not be able to come and speak at his church. These meetings continued for the entire summer.

One of his good men decided that he would visit several of the like minded churches in the area for their regular Wednesday night service and observe how they conducted their meetings. In each of these churches he found former members of his church who had joined these other churches for one reason or another. He said without exception when the service was over he left saying to himself, “These people left our Church for this?”

That raises a good question. Why would a person leave a good church that is getting more done for the Lord than any other church in the area and join one that does not come near the church they leave?

There may be a number of reasons and space does not permit me to deal at length with them, but one reason seems to be more prevalent than all the others. I have noticed in my years of pastoring that people get into conflict with other people and never a doctrinal issue. Sometimes it is a problem between children, sometimes it is disagreement over music type, sometimes it is because of something said about or to a person that is eaken wrong or offensive. Feelings get hurt and barriers are built.

The incident becomes a “root of bitterness” or a “seed of discontent”. Because the wound or hurt is not dealt with scripturally and Spiritually it grows and spreads and then causes blindness to spiritually truth and becomes a barrier to the working of the Holy Spirit in the person’s life. When decisions are made in that frame of mind, very seldom does a person act in the leading of the Lord and according to His will. Of course the person and their families will loose God’s blessings and step outside the Will of God. Multitudes of God’s children are dormant and rusting in churches where they have fled to get away from someone or some situation rather than act as Christians and resolve the problems.

In all these situations the work of the Lord is hindered, the Lord is grieved and the devil rejoices. How sad!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As you said there are many reasons why one would leave a church. I will propose one idea that many do no think of. The underlining reason for not having rest or peace at a particular church may have to do with that individual not obeying the will of God for greater service such as pastoring, missionary, etc. Therefore they will continue to be a church hopper until they submit.

Johnny said...

Sad, but very true!

ky preacher said...

I have seen this as well. I guess this a common problem everywhere. What really gets me is when a person or people leave and go to another faith or doctrine. I just simply do not understand either situations.