What are "valid" reasons to leave a church?

Legitimate reasons to leave a church:

1. The pastor/teachers are teaching blatant hearesy and when confronted, refuse to stop.
2. Serious moral failing that would disqualify the pastor, yet he continues to stay at the church. (having an affair, stealing, child abuse, etc.)
3. You are required to spend so much time at church and church activities that you must neglect your family (This could be resolved without leaving in some cases.)



Non-Legitimate reasons to leave:
1. You don't like the music style
2. The pastor preaches from the Old Testament too often
3. You don't like the pastor's personality or leadership style (you think he's too bossy or not assertive enough)
4. You don't get your way or have control over all the areas you'd like to
5. You don't think the pastor preaches enough about certain subjects you'd like to see addressed more often.
6. The pastor and his wife and kids aren't perfect

 

We left a church 17 years ago to come to our present church because the music changed from traditional music to loud contemporary music with the rock and roll beat. The loud rock beat was only not to our liking, but it was irritating to us; perhaps because we are both musically inclined.

Our current church has had good traditional music until about five years ago when they started to mix contemporary music with traditional music. We have found some music that is considered contemporary to be worshipful, but not that with the rock beat. Now it is almost all contemporary with some rock beat. Unfortunatly, what used to be a high part of the service is now the low part.

 

I should have added on my post, that the words and music should honor Christ. As long as it is honoring Christ, not the singer or the songwriter or the flesh, personal preference should not be a reason to leave. I do not believe all traditional music honors Christ, nor does all CCM.

 

I loved the big bands of my early era, but not in church. A choir, organ and piano and the odd singing group. When a drum beats, I beat it!

Cheers,

Jim

 

Church membership is not like a marriage. When you join you make no commitment to stay a certain period of time. You may leave for any reason or no reason at all because staying in a particular church is not part of your covenant with God. I have been a member of the same church for 34 years but if I became dissatisfied for any reason, I would leave and join another church.

 

I also should have added that we stayed in the church we left for about two years after if went to the contemporary Christian rock music. After sitting through two years of contemporary Christian rock song services that were sometimes irritating to us, we left. I think it is important to go to a church where you feel comfortable (not irritated) while worshipping the Lord.

I have found that people that are not musically inclined are not as adversely affected by the Christain rock music as those who are musically inclined.

 

In addition to the items listed before this post, I think there is ONE valid option not yet mentioned -- God is leading you elsewhere.

The only times I have "left a church" in my life have been because of military moves (which are intentionally left out of this discussion), except for the last time. In that case, the membership of the church elected to close the congregation because of lack of membership and excess bills (poor way of saying it, but truthful). We put the facilities up for sale, sold them to another Baptist congregation, which have spent 9 years building a small group of people into a new church mission. My darling wife and I joined another congregation 17 miles away, under the guidance of God, and have never been led by God to go anywhere else.

Bill :godisgood:

 

After spending several years of being told I could not serve God there, I was not going to be allowed to do anything there, we finally left.

 

We have left churches twice. The first time there it was because God was telling us to leave, and we fought Him on that for two years. Those were two of the worst years of my life. In the end God made it so bad for us there we had to walk out.

The second time we left because the pastor lied to us.

While I believe that you shouldn't hop from church to church, there is nothing that says you must stay in the same church all your life. If you can find the church home that gives you God's Peace for your entire life then you are truly blessed.

God may lead us to a certain church for a time because there is something there for us to learn, but that may not the place he wants us to be forever. How many Pastors stay at the same church for their entire life? Some do and some don't, but we don't expect them to stay forever. Why should a member be held to a higher standard than the Pastor?



Bill

 

I forgot to add, we have left three churches. One was because of blatant sin in the church that was not addressed/corrected by the pastor/elders, the second was left on good terms when my dh got ordained for ministry, and the third because the pastor lied to us on more than one occasion and was purposely not following the church constitution.