Leaving your church
Three years ago, I wrote a short entry called When it’s time to leave your church. I’ve been amazed at the amount of traffic that entry continues to receive. Invariably I notice that people find it after searching the web with “how to know when to leave my church” or “how to leave your church.” Church hopping is passé. In the 21st century, folks don’t seem to be looking for another church. Many are ready to give up on church completely.
If this is you, or if you’re in the former group of struggling to stay in your church, I hope you’ll leave feedback that will be constructive and helpful for others on their journey. I intend this entry to be the first in a follow-up series to the original entry.
Since there are a more reasons why people consider not going to their church any longer than there are fire ant mounds in south Arkansas, we’ll be taking this slowly. Examining your reasons for not going are more important than stopping going.
They can be as simple as…
- I’m tired of the routine, the same-old, same-old.
- It’s boring.
- I don’t get anything out of the ________ (sermons, programs, ministries).
- Someone else always beats me to the best dessert at potlucks.
- I just don’t feel connected there.
To as complex and meaningful as…
- I’m concerned about the biblical teaching there (or lack thereof).
- The leadership of the church is becoming ____________ (cultish, autocratic, unhealthy, insert your adjective).
- The church is consumed with themselves.
- My family has not been ministered to there.
In future entries, we will be exploring these and other reasons for leaving your church. As a pastor of a church, my goals are:
- To evaluate your relationship with Christ and help you embrace the Church as His bride and chosen method of world redemption. This will help you view “church” in a biblical and reverent manner.
- To get you to consider your own heart and its blamelessness. This will ensure that you are willing to forgive if necessary.
- To evaluate if you are a victim of consumerism, materialism or false worldviews in your own assessment of your church or your approach to it. The lens that we view life through may cloud our vision and understanding of reality.
- To help you leave well (if possible and if leaving is actually what you need to do).
- To provide you with a framework for the next church that you will serve Christ through.
Obviously, I’m biased toward the church. We will examine this mystery together as sincere sleuths, seeking to arrive at proper deductions. But make no mistake, there are enough twists and turns in our relationship with the people of God to provide fodder for the best thriller for eternity:
“This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5.32
I hope you’ll tag along for this journey. Stay tuned….
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Another house
For those of you who are regular readers, you may have noticed my lack of blog productivity over the past month. I’m going to blame this one on another house – our new home in Blacksburg, Virginia. We were blessed to finally (after nearly 8 months of active looking) find a wonderful home in the same neighborhood we were renting previously.
Moving just a few doors away is a unique situation. I was a huge proponent of the “get-50-people-and-line-them-up-across-the-neighborhood” strategy that would create a human conveyor belt for our belongings. It didn’t work that smoothly, but we had a ton of help and were grateful to be stashed in our new digs in less than 48 hours.
For those of you who have moved recently, you’ll understand the phase we’re now in. We are comfortable, and even though there are tons of boxes still waiting for our attention, it’s not stuff we need every day, and so we’ve been unmotivated to unbox. It’s strange how life doesn’t slow down to allow you to focus on things like that.
The week prior to our move, I traveled to Orlando for the Exponential Conference, treated all our church’s volunteers to a laughter-saturated appreciation dinner and baptized seven folks at our church. It was an incredibly full week that I mentioned briefly here.
Since moving in, we’ve been able to host our small group twice, and it’s a humbling experience to see God at work in people’s lives even as they sit in your home. One of our criteria in our home search was that it had to be a wonderful place for families and friends to relax with us and a home in which ministry would be centered.
The ministries that take place through our (and your) home, however, are not nearly as important as the ministries that take place in your home. It would be comically tragic for small groups and Bible studies with church members and guests to be regularly occurring within our home at the expense and absence of daily discipleship within our own family.
Let me urge you to prioritize the ministry within your home before you attempt to do ministry through your home. As a Christian husband, I have been granted the humbling and deeply significant role of seeking Christ for my whole home. I am to be my home’s pastor before I am my church’s pastor. This is true even for Christian husbands who are not vocationally called to serve as pastors. Our relationship with Christ must be mirrored in our relationship with our families. We humbly seek to lead our wives and children closer to Jesus as our life’s utmost calling.
The leaders of the church in the New Testament saw the home as an unquestionable spiritual priority for leaders in the church. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, “He [the leader] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) (1 Timothy 3.4-5)
Moving from one house to another is irrelevant in the definition of a Christian home. It’s not the bricks that are ordained or special. It is the living building blocks of the church that live within them. (“For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3.9)
How does your spiritual home look these days? Is it time to unpack the things that you’ll need to most to spiritually shepherd your family?
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The House
There is a house near the southern edge of Arkansas. That house no longer contains the magic and mystery and comfort that it once held. It sits vacant now. It has done so for several years now. Although its interior has changed little – furniture sitting unmoved since the days of my childhood, its transcendent quality has deteriorated with each passing year, much the same as the wood decays on its exterior.
In days of yore, the house was the epicenter of adventure, dreams, exploration and childhood fantasy. Kids played around, under, over and in the endless pine forests surrounding it. They were often called in to supper, not by voices but by fragrances of fried foods emitting from the kitchen windows of the house.
My father lived in the house beginning sometime in high school, and my uncle and aunt also made it their residence. Although their rooms still bore telltale traces of their young lives, it was the rowdy passage of all their children that left the greatest mark (or marks) on the house.
- A wooden camel figurine brought back from Jerusalem erupted into shekinah glory in the fireplace one summer as an experiment.
- A set of dainty China cups were cracked and shoved to the back of the China cabinet away from casual viewing.
- A shotgun hole in the side of the work shed was handily covered with a leaning plow.
- A porch swing was undamaged but knocked a cousin into the sticker bushes next to the porch when he wasn’t prepared for the speed at which another cousin pushed it back at him.
- Hot Wheel cars logged more mileage down the hardwood floor hall than a farmer’s Chevrolet.
- Rumor has it that there is actually glass still missing from a few picture frames in the house after rowdiness broke them and fear swept them up and threw away the pieces quietly.
It is the house’s emptiness now that saddens all those who once enjoyed it. Grandkids have grown and now have kids of their own. Visits to it now are more like pilgrimages, and the occasional relative departs with a treasure only with the permission of the house’s guardian and heritage keeper. Both of its longtime tenants have transitioned to a better house, one with heavenly rewards.
And so the house sits forlornly in the pine forests of southeast Arkansas. It beckons all, but few come. It offers powerful nostalgia and memorable, albeit musty, ambience for any who would tarry. Its sole activity in these days of dispersed relatives and deceased owners is simply to… rot.
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Review: The Red Sea Rules (rated 4 stars)
This small book makes for an easy read, but I encourage you at the outset to not plow through it just to say you’ve read another book. Rather, chew through it, and reflect, enjoy, and drink deeply of how Morgan spins a spiritual tapestry.
I had the privilege of getting to meet Bob Morgan last spring when he came to preach a revival at Rose Hill Freewill Baptist Church in Monticello, Arkansas. Our church regularly hosted an event designed to encourage ministers called NCourage.
The pastor at Rose Hill, David Ponder, graciously informed me of Morgan’s visit and offered to set him up to speak at NCourage that week. We partnered together to buy a case of books to give out: The Red Sea Rules.
A year later, I’ve just read it. Morgan tells the story of the Israelites deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and in doing so gives ten rules for handling hardship:
- Realize that God means for you to be where you are.
- Be more concerned for God’s glory than for your relief.
- Acknowledge your enemy, but keep your eyes on the Lord.
- Pray!
- Stay calm and confident, and give God time to work.
- When unsure, just take the next logical step by faith.
- Envision God’s enveloping presence.
- Trust God to deliver in His own unique way.
- View your current crisis as a faith builder for the future.
- Don’t forget to praise Him.
The way that Morgan unpacks each of these rules in such a short book is marvelous. As he consistently points to a God who made a way for His people through a sea, he urges us to trust this same God to make a way today through our impossible situations.
Don’t race through the book. Enjoy the journey.
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Baptism & Celebration
Last week was astonishingly full. It culminated in a Baptism and Celebration Service on the football field behind Blacksburg Middle School. It also included a trip to Orlando with some of our church staff and volunteers for the Exponential Conference. Throw in a massive laughfest called our Volunteer Appreciation Dinner on Saturday night at NLCF‘s facility for good measure. As I hit the sack last night, I was moved by gratitude, joy and relief.
I wanted to point you to some pictures that might help you appreciate the joys of the past weekend and week, as well let you see a video that Dave Farris shot from his iPhone. I hope you’ll thank the Lord with me for a week of fullness and grace.
Pictures:
Dave’s Video:
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Exponential 2010: The Acts 2 Church
Louie Giglio is now a church planter. He is the lead pastor at Passion City Church, but you may know him best from his leadership of Choice Ministries in Waco, Texas many years ago or of the Passion Network these past 13 years. He’s been a huge influence in my own discovery of the joy of following Jesus and of intimate, biblical worship.
I heard him in Atlanta last fall at Catalyst, but when he spoke Tuesday at Exponential, I was struck by his renewed passion and intensity. He has always urged college students to drive deep into their love relationship with Jesus Christ. At Exponential, Louie urged church planters to do the same thing.
He began by reading all of Isaiah 55, focusing on Isaiah 55.10-11. As he talked about his growing conviction that led him to help start PCC, he answered the oft-asked question that many of us church planters receive: What kind of church is it?
Louie’s responses about PCC was simple: “I don’t know.”
I thought his response was brilliant. Most folks are wanting to pigeon-hole your church, and in doing so, they attempt to rob it of influence. “Oh, it’s a Baptist church…” Or, “Oh, so you guys light candles?” The list goes on. I wrote an entry a while back about the danger of marginalization. In a nutshell, when people can classify you, they feel comfortable with you.
So Louie’s response to that question may force initial discomfort.
As he unpacked his biblical rationale, he also wisely challenged some assumptions of the contemporary church world that needed to be challenged.
Most will say that you need a clear vision in mind when you’re starting a new church, that you need a mission statement, that you need a 3-year strategy, a launch date, and an iPhone. Louie said that with PCC, they didn’t start with a photograph in mind of what they should become. Rather, they began with operational principles.
While many in the past 20 years of the church planting/growth movement have identified the church in Acts 2 as being their role model, Louie asked a great question: What kind of church did the Acts 2 church think they were becoming? In other words, the Acts 2 Church didn’t know they were an “Acts 2 Church.”
Louie said they had three operational principles:
- They had the teachings of Jesus.
- They were eyewitnesses of the Resurrection.
- They were filled with power by the Holy Spirit.
He urged us to rest secure in the reality that Christian today have what they had. “We have what they had!” he exclaimed. “Plus, we get the maps!” he said with a cheeky grin.
When we depend on the teachings of Jesus, believe and act in dependence on Christ’s resurrection, and surrender and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we too can demonstrate the radical nature of the New Testament church. He then asked with conviction, “How could we ever become arrogant?!”
“It is arrogance that leads to divisiveness and competition.” He also urged leaders to quit getting our vocabulary and ideas from the latest book that is released in the contemporary/missional/postmodern/transformational church world.
Be confident in the Word of God.
Quoting from the Isaiah passage above, Louie passionately urged leaders to believe deeply that God’s Words will accomplish their purpose. Every time. They never fail in their assignment. We must seek repentance for failing to walk by faith in His Word.
Louie said he occasionally hears someone say something to the effect, “You really hit it out of the park this week.” He wished that expression and all like it would be banned from our responses. It’s not whether we “hit it out of the park,” but did we place the Word of God before the people? If so, “it ain’t coming back.”
What Others Said About It
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Exponential 2010: A Talking Donkey
Mark Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC and also the author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. As a church planter and pastor, he shared with us the unique story of the talking doney in Numbers 22.
It’s an unusual passage, and as Mark shared his own journey with us of a failed church plant attempt in Chicago (a project for which he got an A on his plans for it in seminary), he pointed out that many times, we head out in a direction with our plans rather than God’s plans. We may be going in the right direction but have the wrong intent.
In Numbers 22:30, the donkey is the rational one in the passage, having endured three beatings. Up to this point in the passage, the donkey is the only one to have seen the angel in the way.
Mark pointed out that we like “open doors†more than closed doors, but the closed doors are more significant. It was the angel of the Lord that kept closing the path forward… but strange… God told Balaam to go in the first place.
Sometimes, God gets in our way to show us His way.
God wants you to get where He wants you to go more than you want to get where He wants you to go. Batterson urged us to consider how our plans may be interrupted by God’s better plans. Don’t get discouraged when what you have in mind doesn’t fall into place. Trust that the Lord is up to something that you may not be able to perceive.
In the end, God wanted Balaam to bless, and not curse His people.
Perhaps a better moral would be: Don’t be so quick to mistreat the smart asses in your life. They may be seeing more than you are.
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Exponential, Round 2
Members of our staff and leadership team arrived in Orlando late on Monday night after a day of planes and automobiles. It’s been two years since my first Exponential Conference experience, and already, the difference is significant.
At my first experience, I was by myself, and I’d come off a particularly trying year as a pastor and church planter in Arkansas. This year, I’m with new leaders at a new church, and we’re here after a particularly blessed several months of God’s gracious favor in the life of our church and families.
It’s much better to learn in community, and I’m grateful for Cody, Dave, and Jim being here with me. It’s going to be fun to unpack what we’ve learned each evening and on the way home.
I’ll try to post daily about some reflections from the conference, as I did back in 2008, but I assure you that I’ll be kinder to Ed Stetzer. I’ll never forget the call I got from Carolyn after my first conference entry back then. I had attended the first plenary session that day, and Ed was the keynote speaker. I was there as a wounded church planter that had financed his trip on fumes. I just needed a life preserver.
Ed instead threw stats. They were great ones, and they were convicting to us all about the state of the church and our need to adopt a missional strategy and lifestyle, but his talk just left me discouraged. Actually, it was a great talk, but in my frame of mind, it just didn’t connect.
Carolyn called and said, “One of your ‘friends’ is messing with you. They left a comment on your entry claiming to be Ed Stetzer.” I laughed and went to my blog to check the commenter’s email. It was Ed’s.
Bummer. In my blunt hurtness, I had unintentionally wounded someone else. Or so I thought. In the comment exchange (and later email) that followed, I realized it would take much more than that to hurt Ed’s feelings, thank goodness.
Strange thing, Ed and I wound up going to Poland together later that year as part of a church planters’ discovery trip with the IMB. You can see those entries here.
One important lesson I learned out of that experience? Never blog when you’re frustrated.
If you’re at Exponential this year, I’d love to hear from you!
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Review: In Plain Sight
I was contacted by the publisher of In Plain Sight and asked whether I’d be willing to review the book if they supplied a copy. A free book? Of course.
I was not familiar with the book or author though, so I waited with some trepidation wondering what I’d gotten myself into. When it arrived, I was immediately struck by the cover photo, shown at left.
The photo on the left on the cover is of a brain cell; the one on the right is of an oak tree. The similarities in design are amazing. And so is this book written by scientist and neurosurgeon Dr. Charley Gordon.
It’s a glossy book packed with stunning color photographs that each portray remarkable design similarities between the micro and the macro.
The book is set up to be read as a 40-day devotional, with each day ending in reflective scripture based off the relationship of the photographs and accompanying thoughts.
It’s one thing to have a nice, coffee-table book with stunning photographs. It’s another to have one that is an engaging and fascinating read as well. In Plain Sight fits both categories. After reading a few days of devotional thoughts, I contacted the publisher and related that I would be delaying my review simply because I wanted to enjoy the pace of the book and take it as it’s set up – as 40 days of devotional thoughts.
I wholeheartedly recommend the book to you, and I hope you consider giving it as a gift to friends, family and acquaintances that may be needing some hope, purpose and deep reflection in their life. It is not a book that’s easy to shrug off for a skeptic. Neither is it a book that seeks to convince. Rather, it’s a gracious portrayal of our fascinating world from a thoroughly biblical viewpoint that coaxes the reader to consider our Creator’s infinite and tender purposes behind design and beauty.
You can read more about the book at the website for it here.
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Neighborhood drama
Tonight, our neighbor across the street informed Carolyn that she thinks her boys have forgiven Adelyn. When Carolyn asked why, here’s the story that unraveled.
This morning, Adelyn and the other kids in the neighborhood were waiting on the school bus (very Rockwellian). That’s when Billy and DJ began to brag that they had gotten out of the house without having to wear their school picture clothes. Apparently their mom had set them out the night before, but the two siblings had managed to get out in what Adelyn has since described as “just Michael Jordan shorts.”
Adelyn and her friend Michelle were horrified that these two boys were not excited about school pictures and that they had done this to their mom.
They promptly marched to the front door of the boys’ house. The boys anxiously dashed in ahead of them, trying to prevent their mom from coming to the door. It was too late. Adelyn proudly ratted out her neighborhood buddies. The result?
The boys missed the bus while they were forced to change, and their mom brought them to school a while later. The two stool pigeonettes rode smugly to school on the bus, confident that they’d done a good deed.
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About
Notes from the Trail
The Personal Blog of Jeff Noble
Info: From the misty hills of Virginia, "Notes from the Trail" seeks to encourage you on your journey. Written by a graphic designer-pastor, this blog is a blend of humor, insight, and faith discovery.
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RT @jackieflake: @vthoneybee, Melissa u lived as Christ, your death is gain. God thank u for sharing our sister w/us. Living well yields ... [journeyguy]
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