With the quarantine behind us, we have all had the opportunity to attend other churches virtually. And if you had the slightest bit of trepidation about the church you were attending in person in the pre-quarantine, this could be your perfect opportunity to check around online to see if there is somewhere else that better meets your needs. But before you make that move, there are some important things to know so you don’t end up at a new church yet dealing with the same old problems.
My husband and I have been saved since 1987 and have attended only 6 different churches, so we are anything but 'church hoppers'. The times that we did leave and look for a different church, it was physically, spiritually, and emotionally painful, it was something that I quickly learned to dread. Finding a new church might be painful, but it is nothing compared to attending a spiritually dead church, or worse, attending a good church and watch it die slowly.
So I encourage you to get pen and paper and write the answers to these questions down. Get real. Put your heart into this. A good church is worth the time and energy it takes to find it. A good church can help you grow, mature, have a better understanding of the Word of God and teach you how to pray. And good planning and being led by God’s spirit can help you to find a a great church without breaking your heart in the process.
Why Change?
The first and most important thing to consider is to identify why you want to leave your current church.
1. Has someone offended you?
2. Do you feel neglected?
3. Did you goof up/sin/embarrass yourself and you feel like no one likes you/wants you there anymore?
4. Do you feel invisible or neglected or ignored?
5. Is your church preaching the Word of God or the pastor’s opinions?
6. Is the pastor living what he’s preaching?
7. Is God prompting you to go?
8. Are all your friends moving to a certain church?
9. What if you and your spouse like different churches? Is it okay to attend separately?
10. Is there strife, bickering, gossiping, or back-biting at your church?
Write down ALL the reasons WHY you want to leave. Even if you’re not sure why, write down some possible answers. Sometimes writing, (since it stimulates a different part of the brain that typing on the computer), can help you to realize why you are wanting to leave.
Know that your church is not responsible for your total spiritual nutrition and growth . . it is YOURS. But know, also, that a good church can foster spiritual growth, but a bad church can shipwreck your faith!! Where you choose to go really is a BIG deal! Know, also, that trying different churches will post likely be way out of your comfort zone. This could be because you have strong neural networks built up in your brain about the good memories from your previous church, and none, if any, about the new church. So take your time, relax, and know that you WILL find a new church.
Last, and most importantly, trust God’s leading . Let Him choose where HE wants you to go. Finding a church is so much bigger than you getting fed spiritually or finding a church that meets your needs! It’s being planted in a place that needs the gifts that only you can bring.
Asking God to put you where HE wants you is also for your brothers and sisters in Christ! I have a dear friend who felt compelled to leave her church. She felt very used and unsupported. Her and her husband prayed and they ended up at a church that was spiritually not as mature as we all thought she should attend, but she continued to minister through her huge heart full of God’s love. That was something that the new congregation had never experienced before. And and as she showed Gods love they fell in love with her! and began to show love and support to one another! The church grew both spiritually and numerically since her and her husband joined.
If . . .Then
I want to go back to the questions that I asked you in the Why section, because I have seen people, me included, just ignore them and end up at a church they feel and stuck in and regret ever attending.
1. First of all, if you’re tempted to leave your current church because someone has offended you, then YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DEAL WITH ANY AND ALL OFFENSE(S)! Otherwise, you will take your easily-offended stinky attitude with you to the next church(es). Instead of holding on to that bitterness, hurt and blame, go to God. Tell Him in prayer about EVERYTHING that hurt or offended you. Then forgive. Confess your part in the offense if that applies. Is there anything you can do to make things right? If so, then do it. Then evaluate if you’re still feeling the pull to change churches. After that, spend the next few days/weeks/months praying for the person who offended you. Pray until you truly love that person. Then see if God is still leading you away from that church. A good book to read about the danger of being offended is entitled ‘The Bait of Satan’ by John Bevere.
2. Next, what if you’re feeling neglected, invisible, or ignored? What if you aren’t feeling appreciated for all the time you spend volunteering? Sadly, I’ve been there. At a previous church, I volunteered to fill Welcome bags for first time guests. I homeschooled my kids at the time, and was desperate for adult companionship. The thought of being around church staff members where we could talk about Jesus seemed to be the absolute BEST!! So you can imagine how hurt I was when I came in to do the bags and one of the associate pastors told me that the bags were now being put in the storeroom and I could fill them back there, and ‘by the way, close the door, because its cold back there!’
So for 2 hours every Friday, I filled bags. Alone. In a cold store room. Many times I would cry from the sheer loneliness of knowing the people I longed to spend time with were just on the other side of the wall. But I knew that God was calling me to fill those bags. And every week, God would deal with my attitude, reminding me that I was there to serve HIM, not them, and that HE would keep me company.
After a few Fridays, I started to pray as I filled the bags. I’d pray for the people who would be getting those bags and how God would use it to change lives. Every week it got easier to fill those bags until I began to look forward to it. In this time of hurt, God taught me compassion. He taught me to actively thank the people who I work with, who volunteer, and who lead. And it was that very same church that God directed me to start a Military Ministry that ministered to up to 60 families!!! The point is, if you feel neglected, ignored, etc. first realize you are led by the Spirit of God, NOT by your emotions. Next know that you are there to serve GOD! Sometimes that means serving people too, but not always. Let God do His work in you! Seek God; don’t dare walk in self-pity!! It can also mean that God desires YOU to be the healing balm that is otherwise neglected in that specific church. Ask Him what HE wants you to get out of this experience, and then be open to His teaching and leading. Read Hebrews 12:4.
3. Let’s approach the question about the very touchy subject of what to do if you or a family member have sinned: I had a dear friend who got offended by a staff member AND her son was selling drugs at church before youth group. How in the world do you recover from something like that? Leave? Maybe. Endure the icy stares every Sunday making it nearly unbearable to attend church? My friend had to do some real soul-searching. But she finally came to the realization that her family was not the star of the show, God was .
Church is where we go to get away from the world and re-focus on God. We, by choice, make God the star. But in a situation where you or a family member has sinned publicly, it it VITAL to go to God in prayer and ask God if He will release you to look for another church. He may, or He may have you just stick it out where you are. No matter which it is, please take the time to pray for healing for everyone involved . Pray for total restoration for you and others, even if God calls you to leave. You also must realize that Ephesians 6:12 applies here: ‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’
Being in church does not mean that you are immune to spiritual attacks from within the church. The church can truly be the enemy’s playground because the most harm can be done to many by wounding just a few. Many times, to stay even though you’ve been embarrassed or humiliated by something that you, or a family member have done, is one of the bravest, most healing, best things you can do. But you MUST be led by God, no matter if you leave or stay.
4-7. Next, what about the preaching. Is the pastor preaching the Word of God, or is he preaching his or other peoples’ opinions? Does he take the Bible out of context? If so, is it done often? Does he live what he preaches? And - this is important - does he tell cool stories, but they happened 10 or 20 years ago instead of recently?
We attended one church where the pastor had to work a second job to make ends meet, which gave him little time to study the Bible and prepare sermons. When he preached, it was from books other than they Bible, secular opinions and research and statistics. We watched our little church go from a growing and thriving place that was open anytime you needed to go and pray to a church that was dying before our eyes. It was horrible and literally painful to watch.
Because it was a small church, we invited him to dinner and politely asked about it. He admitted that he was no longer in the Bible and it it saddened and surprised him to know that those in the pews could tell a difference. We offered any help he might need if it could free him up to study and better prepare. We closed out that evening feeling assured and hopeful that things would change. Instead things got worse. I wanted to leave and we asked God if we could. Within 10 days, a friend invited me to a church that I had secretly wanted to go to for years.
But one of the mistakes that I did make as we were leaving is not praying for the pastor. In retrospect, that that was a big mistake. 20 years later and that same little church was still struggling. In my opinion, and pertaining to what the Bible says, it is the Word of God honored, preached, taught, and carried out that gives a church light and life. When the word of God is given supreme authority, many other things will fall into place also.
8. On the subject of friends, when you have a close knit group of friends who you attend church with, it can be difficult when they start going somewhere else. Peer pressure is not just hard for kids to deal with. When we experienced this, I would go to God, and ask why they were leaving, and if we should leave, too. But when I thought about going somewhere else, it didn’t feel right. It felt foreign. According to Isaiah 55:12, we are to be led by God’s peace. If you have peace where you’re attending, then don’t leave. If you don’t have peace, ask God where He would like you to attend. The times that we have left a church, God would put the desire to leave in our heart long before He called us to actually walk out the doors and not go back and we always did our very best to leave on good terms with as many people as possible. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. It shouldn’t cause a break in fellowship for someone to go to a different church. If your friends have a right heart, they’ll support your decision. But if they are treating you badly because you haven’t left to go to church with them, then maybe it’s time to question the friendship. Matthew 16:26 asks ‘For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’
9. What if you find a great church but your spouse doesn’t like it? What if it meets your needs, but not your spouses needs? Thats a difficult question and it is something you really need to seek God about. God delights in unity. the closest verse I could find on the issue is Matthew 18:19: ‘“Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” If you go to different churches and come back home and teach each other what you’ve learned with an open heart, that would be a great thing. But it is so easy to get competitive having a ‘my church is better than your church’ attitude that things could go off the rails quickly and it could cause strife between the two of you.
10. Lastly, and speaking of strife, if you are in a church where strife(bickering, arguing, back-biting) is not dealt with, then pray about leaving. Strife is poison. It can kill a church. It will cause a Christian to backslide and turn away from God. It can destroy a family and ruin a marriage. James 4:1, 1Timothy 6:4, 1Corinthians 3:3 and Romans 1:29 and 13:13 are some great verses about the dangers of strife. James 3:16 says that where there is envy and strife, and self-seeking, there is also confusion and every evil thing.’ Strife is also a barometer of other things going on. Leave None Behind Ministries also offers an in-depth teaching on strife and how to deal with it, which is entitled ‘ The Key’.
Now that we looked at some of the negatives, let’s look at what good things to look for in a church. Realize that you are an individual, and your worship style, gifts, and personal preferences do come into play. So ask yourself:
-do you prefer a choir, or a praise and worship band?
-do you feel comfortable with dance in church, or are you against it?
-do you like a pastor who wears specific clothes to preach in? A suit? Or are jeans and a shirt okay?
-do you prefer a formal church or a spirit led service?
-do you prefer preaching that is topical or do you like it to be straight from the Bible, verse on verse?
-do you desire Sunday school classes?
-are you comfortable attending small groups in someones home?
-what are the volunteer opportunities?
-do you want a church that specifically support missionaries?
-do you prefer a small church or a large one?
-how many miles are you willing to drive or go to this new church?
-do you need a children’s program? What about a youth camp?
-do you want your children to be in church with you during service?
-are you uncomfortable if the pastor talks about money? Satan?
-are you comfortable in a church which is very evangelistic?
-do you desire to do street witnessing?
-what does this church do for the poor?
-how friendly are you and is this church? Is it a good match on that level? Are they huggers? Are you comfortable with that?
-how far away is the church? 'A church alive is worth the drive, but the farther the drive the less chance you might have to really get involved.
-are you comfortable if there are satellite churches attached to the main church?
Does the lead pastor preach most of the services or are there multiple pastors preaching each week?
I encourage you to write down your answers all these questions that I have posed to you. When we were searching there were some churches I knew 10 minutes into the service that it wouldn’t work for us. What surprised me is just how many churches that I felt completely at home in. That is part of being the body of Christ. We are one. We have, or share, one spirit. If the spirit of the Lord is at that particular church, you will feel comfortable there.
The best next step is to listen to an online sermon. Enjoy each sermon as if it’s from your favorite pastor. Try not to be critical or defensive as you listen for the first time. Then consider giving each church a rating as simple as ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Then note all the churches you gave a yes to, and over the next weeks, listen to more sermons from those churches. When you have it narrowed down to just a few, consider - if you are able - to visit in person each of the churches.
When you go, be ready with any questions you might have. Can you talk one-on-one with the lead pastor, or do you need to talk to an Assistant pastor? My hubby and I never felt the need to, but I have friends who wouldn’t attend a church unless they could meet with the pastor first. Then, before you go all in, you might want to consider attending for a few weeks just to get the feel for the church. In the meantime, all along, be praying, asking and thanking God that He is placing you right where He wants you to serve.
If you do find a church that you absolutely love online, but it is in a different state or simply too far away to attend, great! Then continue to watch it online. But also find a LOCAL church to attend regularly and serve at. A church is a big investment in time, heart, and your family, too, but always remember that every church is led by imperfect people. Treat it as such, and trust God to lead youth the place HE has for you to go!
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