I meet pastors for coffee. Every one of them says something like this to me: “I got an email this week from somebody who says they’re leaving my church.” I’m like, “Welcome to my club. At least you got an email.”
We have the right to change churches. We have the right to quit being a part of one altogether. We even have the right to leave the faith. But there’s something I notice in charismatic type churches, or churches who have been connected in any way with the renewal movement: we are more transient. We’re looking for something. And if the church loses it or doesn’t provide it, we’ll be faithful for as long as we can, but eventually we’ll move on. When I was a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, I never saw anything like this. There are many churches in this area that people move around in. Like certain birds, we tend to migrate around to wherever it’s hottest and most agreeable. Renewal and charismata does something to us. And it ain’t all good. It plants a discontent deep within us that can never be satisfied, at least for long. I know what I’m talking about because I fight this restlessness all the time. As messed up as it was, Corinth, the conference capital of the Roman world, would’ve been my drug.
Yes, I’m infected. I have the charismatic renewal virus. But I also realize that what I value most is relationship. I am worshiping, praying and learning with my friends. To go after my drug would mean to abandon them.* I don’t want that. I love them. They love me. My God, all we’ve been through together! And, as disappointing as church can be sometimes, when it comes down to it, the greatest of everything and anything is love.
*I realize that some people leave my church because they believe I am not preaching the gospel, or the whole gospel, or something other than the gospel. But that’s another story.
Cartoonist.
Artist.
Spirituality Coach.
Writer.
Speaker.
I think part of the problem is that when something of God beins, people gravitate towards ‘it’. Then we, man, our egos get involved and it becomes more about us and less about God, people start to slowly leave. As my 74 year old father told me – recently – when it stops being about Jesus, you know it; which is part of the reason people leave.
Personally, I left ‘my’ church when the spoken ‘prophetic’ word was held in higher esteem than the written word. I held out for three years, hoping it would balance out, but no go.
Pursuing relationship is much harder than pursuing the latest Jesus juice. I never have to look at my stuff, own my stuff or deal with my stuff as long as holiness/wholeness is about busy programs or ecstatic experiences. The whole of the New Testament is exactly opposed to either way of thinking and calls us to wrestle with God in the grip of grace but we’ll have none of it. This is the fruit of law oriented living and we’re nothing if not in love with law. God have mercy, Christ have mercy.
Though I’m not especially proud to admit it, this post resonated with me. I have often wondered why we’re unable to reconcile “Jesus fills the empty hole in your heart” theology with the “More, Lord!” cry of various renewal movements.
At this point in my life, I would be happy to stay SOMEWHERE and walk out my salvation in the company of friends, which would be the reconciliation of the two I think I’m seeking. And wouldn’t you know it – after over 2 years at our church, my husband and I don’t have any real friendships there. (Oh, how we’ve tried and tried and tried some more – but it just ain’t happening.) And then there’s the drug of more for many pastors: ambition that keeps them moving on, unwilling to really be themselves…
I’m tired, and wandering for wandering’s sake is tiring and unwise. Living out your salvation in the company of friends (including some friends who’ve probably been wolves in wolves clothing) is what I think Biblical community must look like.
michelle: a very familiar story to many.
i hear that brianpei
I so agree with you. It is exactly like a drug…the excitment, the high and the ‘wanting more and more’. Maybe that is why when I left I was down for years..like withdrawal in some respects. Then a while ago I went to a ‘pentecostal’ type meeting and just felt so cold and so untouched by it all. I felt like when I gave up cigarettes and saw people smoking..I felt sorry for them and just so glad that I was no longer ‘hooked’ on them.
Your comment about the Presbytern Church was interesting. I think why you didn’t see people move from the church because they are ‘Presbyterians’ People who go to the main line churches are often there because of tradition within their families. They are most likely to say they are ‘Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Anglicans’ etc. Rarely will they identify themselves as Christians who attend a particular demonition.
So, David. What is the gospel?
I had a neighbor who had been active in his Presbyterian congregation for over 50 years, probably 20 or so years before his death. They’d hosted a home Bible study for about 20 years. Another member of that congregation was in her 80′s and had started playing organ there in her teens.
I have aspired to that sort of connected-ness. The record, at present, is about 13. We’ve never left a congregation in anger; we’ve always left because we felt directed to another path. I’ve yet to experience a change in pastors; that could prove to be problematic…The vision of my pastor is a major reason why I stay with this congregation. Ironically, my current pastor is the first I’ve had that I don’t spend time with. This is the first congregation I’ve allowed to see Me more clearly; most can’t comprehend.
It takes a lot of work to be active in a congregation; to participate. Many don’t like the work. Churches are messy, because they are filled with people just as…, and even more so, than myself.
New is exciting, and if exciting is your god, then, yeah… You gotta keep moving on to new stuff.
Marty-for me, the problem isn’t the mess. I’m just looking for a place that encourages/accepts/respects whatever degree of faith or doubt a person might have. I believe that God has us where he has us for a reason (for our own good and each others’ good) and most of the gatherings I’ve been a part of are full of people who seem to want to control this rather than let it play out in a healthy way.
Unfortunately, the charismatic/pentacostal movement is glutted with people who are there for the goosebumps. They travel from church to church…conference to conference… in search of the ultimate high and they won’t stay anywhere that isn’t exciting. For some of them its an addiction. Now let me add that I love pentacostal worship…I love a conference where 20,000 people assemble to worship and to be taught…but I also know that the mountain top experience is only the place we get our instructions and that the lilies grow in the valley. I agree with you , David…Corinth would have been the place to be. But…the searching of the soul needs to be done in silence. Its almost that people are cheating themselves. They get into a place that they recognize as the presence of God, and instead of getting quiet and listening, they go home. And they tell everyone they felt him and that they saw him heal someone and that someone gave a prophetic word and the choir was great and a whole mob of people made the altar call….and….what was going on with them? They went as spectators as if it were a hockey game…it became their entertainment. Once I heard a sermon called “Jesus…Lord of my hobby” and too many people treat it as such. This journey with the Christ is much more than goosebumps and it certainly isn’t a spectator sport.
preacherlady, I like how you think. “… the searchin of the soul needs to be done in silence.” amen to that.
Charismatic/Pentacostal leaders…try this…call for a 5 min period of silence to listen…within 3 min, if its a prayer meeting, someone will say “the Lord really wants me to share this…” if its a service, someone will shout hallelujah…they cannot keep silence …they are uncomfortable in it.
And some folks leave completely, and find what they were looking for there:
http://mysistersfarmhouse.com/
Ann b. Presbys might be a little stodgy sometimes, but in our churches, familes share their lives together for generations. I’ll take that over goosebumps.
It is also just part of the times we live in. Want more, now, better, bigger, grass is always greener, etc.
I always wondered what it would be like to be in a community where a church was somewhere you stayed at for a lifetime. My Oma and Opa went to the same church for 35 years after they moved to Canada. I can’t imagine it. I’d love to be able to though.
I think there is also an unhealthy dynamic in many evangelical charismatic church these days. They seem… invasive, controlling and manipulative in a way I wonder if existed in the church my grandparents went to. I never had that experience or feeling while at my grandparents church. I am remembering through my childhood memories though.
But boring? Yeeeep! lol. I did love the female minister they had though. She was fantastic :c)
There is a quote from Joan Chittister’s commentary on the rule of Benedict (Insights for the Ages) that I just love:
Gyrovagues abound in religious groups: they talk high virtue and demand it from everybody but themselves. They know how to shop for a parish but they do little to build one. They live off a community but they are never available when the work of maintaining it is necessary. They are committed to morality in the curriculum of grade schools but completely unmoved by the lack of morality in government ethics.
(Gyrovagues were a type of wandering monk)
Good quote Alan.
I liken the attraction (or obsession) to charismatic/renewal churches and experiences to someone who doesn’t have a balanced diet. The person craves one kind of food but actually would benefit from more diversity. The breadth of the Christian experience hopefully contains more than the good but limited experiences of charismata.
I think people are looking for a real and living encounter with God, but often use a narrow set of criteria by which to determine whether or not God is present or being encountered. Perhaps God is encountered, or encounters people, through longevity in a friendships and community. Perhaps God is found in the contemplative path with its hills and valleys, gardens and deserts (a path that I suspect more people focused on renewal might benefit from exploring).
Engagement and solidarity with the poor and oppressed seems to reveal another living encounter with God for many, though perhaps an encounter with less fireworks than other types of experiences. The restless search for more renewal isn’t bad, but perhaps people are looking for the wrong thing.
Maybe one doesn’t need more of the same food in one’s diet, but needs to branch out into looking for God in other experiences, especially in the hum-drum and less sensational places.
I think a lot of it is just culture or personality. I am reserved. I wouldn’t dream of calling attention to myself in church by holding my arms up, running in the aisles, hollaring out anything, dancing, etc. Upsetting just to think of it. Yet those actions are natural to others.
Church never gave me a high. I’m too busy thinking.
preacherlady! wow! for me, you hit the nail on the head. from this depression i’ve been going through, i’ve had to learn (kicking and screaming all the way!) silence before God; silence and being in His presence and just being with Him. i’ve somehow known something is awry with lots of “noise” at church, whether it be huge music productions, great lighting, etc…wonderful speakers…but where’s the quiet so I can have this relationship with Christ that we’re all speaking about and singing loudly about and being noisy about? Everything (life, daily life, church, etc…) was too loud for me to hear the truth. By getting quiet (and yes, it was painful and if i could have run, i would have!), i was able to hang out with God in a way that i’ve been praying for. Now, i can’t wait, and love it. and hope that once this depression lifts, that I will still hear Him when I get back to daily life. And that somehow i’ll be able to have both. I’m not running away as much now. i’m not afraid of the silence. i embrace it now.
Keep the backdoor open – Alexander Venter, “Doing Church”
This was the best advice I ever received when I started in the ministry (I’m an associate pastor/church planter). It is not our job to try to “keep” people in our church – we are share the Love of God and teach/peach the things He has told us to teach/preach. It is God’s job to bring people to the church and keep them.
Someone else once said that locking the backdoor is like damming a river. You trap all the trash, logs, and bad apples in one place instead of letting the debris flow on down the river leaving the pure, clean water.
This doesn’t mean you only “keep” the people who look nice and who are “cleaned” up – it means that you let those people who don’t belong in your church leave. Focus on the ones God brought you and let Him worry about the rest.
Is this hard? Yes. I have had people leave the church after disagreeing with a sermon I preached. But, looking back, I am glad they left because it allowed the Spirit to take the rest of the church in direction He couldn’t have if those folks were still there.
Open the front door and love all who enter – but keep the backdoor open wider for all those whom God leads away.
(Note: Alexander Venter is a South African Vineyard pastor who worked under John Wimber for a few years. His book “Doing Church” is an amazing look at how to do church. Well worth the read.) =D
Lynn and shellie…The whole experience of worship…ie. the singing and dancing and clapping…brings us to a place where we can be freer in the Spirit and we can better enter into the intimacy of contemplation. And yet, so often thats all there is…we go to church and all there is is fluff and we need to hear from God NOW. The temptation to skip the quiet time…the time of listening…is always there. We have “stuff” to do, and so we do our reading(sort of)…and go on with the day. And yet…the more time we spend connected to our Source, the easier our day will be. Church is there to give us the tools…its what we do when its just us and God that counts. I’ve reached a point where I long for my solitude…the place where I can be alone with my thoughts and where I just might hear the voice of God.
i just watched this anglican pastor’s sermon recently: http://vimeo.com/8532126
thought provoking!
I think there are two issues here. First, many people are looking for the “signs and wonders”, the spectacular show. No one church can probably sustain that for someone – much of it is based on the novelty.
And of course there are people who simply don’t feel they’re getting what they need from their current church. Some may have outgrown the church. Others may have left because they *didn’t* want to grow. Growth is hard and often painful. Often scary. Safer to move on to a church that may be a bit less nourishing.
But I can understand how a pastor may question whether s/he’s doing the right thing, or whether there’s been some serious lack in the efforts.