My friend Michael Spencer, aka Internet Monk, is writing about Leaving Room For Churches To Be Wrong. As is often the case, everybody involved in a conversation — such as it is — brings to it their own experiences and biases and shades of meaning. Michael does it, the people Michael references do it, and I do it. We can’t help it. The best we can do is to remember that fact, and be gracious to those whose experiences are different from our own. Michael expresses that graciousness well. I hope to do the same.

I am blissfully unaware of the church experiences or religious beliefs of my audience, so I can assume nothing. I believe that the Bible is true, and an authority in my life. I currently attend an Episcopal church, after growing up in a series of pentecostal, word-of-faith, and charismatic churches, as well as a few years when I attended no church at all.

I’ve been disillusioned with “the church,” and I know how it can feel. My family left a church with an abusive pastor, after many tears. I’ve been excited about a church, only to grow disenchanted with what they were teaching my children, and leave it. I don’t think I’ve ever left a church for bad reasons, but who would?

Here’s what I believe to be true: every Christian is part of The Church, the Body of Christ. Therefore, every Christian should be part of a church, a local assembly of Christians. Among many other references, Hebrews 10:25 is pretty straightforward: Don’t neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another.

What, then, if meeting together is discouraging rather than encouraging? What if your own efforts to encourage others are fruitless? Is leaving one local assembly for another a bad thing? It certainly can be.

There was a high-profile legal case here in the Dallas area about a couple who had signed a detailed “membership covenant” with a local church. The man later had an affair, and left the church, attending another church where nobody knew that the man was already married, and not to the woman with whom he sat.

In a situation like that, the man is clearly leaving a church for the wrong reasons. Still, I would say the more important issue is the affair, not where he chooses to attend church!

More important that whether someone leaves a particular local assembly is whether someone leaves The Church entirely. While we may debate about what sort of structure Jesus intended to build, and whether or not His apostles built it as He intended, there can be no question that Jesus intended for us to live in community with each other. It is certainly possible to be a Christian without any contact with other Christians, but it is not the norm, and it is not ideal.

When I was a child, my family lived on a U.S. Navy base in the Philippines. The base had a single chaplain, a Roman Catholic who also led the generic protestant services. He was, as I understand, a lecherous drunk. The protestant services were devoid of encouragement, lacking anything fruitful whatsoever. Still my parents attended, every week. Not out of legalism, but in order to meet any new people that might attend, to encourage them to join a mid-week Bible study group where there was encouragement, the Word, and life.

To argue that only a Sunday morning gathering of a particular denomination is really “The Church” is to miss a pattern present from before the Church was even born!

Elijah complained to God that Elijah, Elijah alone remained faithful to God, and yet God allowed his enemies to seek to kill him. God responded by telling Elijah that there were 7,000 people in Israel who were still faithful to Him, though unknown to Elijah.

Clearly, those 7,000 weren’t attending church properly, or Elijah would have known about them!

Peter, the rock on whom Jesus would build His church, was called out by Paul, a man who had never met Jesus before His ascension, for his treatment of non-Jews. The conflict escalated, and was eventually settled by a council of apostles and elders in Jerusalem. Non-Jews, it was resolved, were to be accepted as equal to Jews, without having to keep the Levitical law.

Peter was wrong. He came around by the time the council was making their final decision, but he started out wrong. What should Paul have done? Sit quietly, accepting Peter’s authority? Start a new competing church? Fortunately, in those days, there was a central authority, the Jerusalem council, and they did not err in this case. In the 21st century, we do not have the same options available. There is no single council, and councils have erred.

Unfortunately, the pastorate and the priesthood draw many people with personal issue that should probably disqualify them from the role, and yet few people will accept the authority (or are even bound to an authority) that will tell them so. Leaders with serious pride and control issues are very common, and the problems are sometimes ever worse. Even good leaders can and do err, and it is simply human to overlook our own errors. 

Is it a sin to leave a church where the pastor is teaching falsehood? Is it wrong to leave a church where the pastor is condoning blatant moral failure? I’m not sure, given the shape of the Church today, that it’s wrong to leave a church for purely aesthetic reasons!

I think it is dangerous and often wrong to avoid all churches altogether. As humans, we do not exist on our own, and God clearly intends for us to be part of a community of believers. Can a hand say to an eye, “I have no need of you?” We are the Body of Christ, together, and we need to part of a visible expression of that. As far as which local expression of the Body we choose, there are many criteria to consider, and some of those may change over time.

I think leaving a church should be a serious matter, carefully considered, and with good reason. Your reasons are your own, but I would hope they are carefully considered. To leave easily or frequently, always choosing a newer or more exciting church, is a mark of error. It suggests that we are not connected to any of the churches we’ve attended, that we are not establishing those relationships we should.

The error there, I think, is not in the leaving, it’s in the never truly arriving. If you are in a church and think nobody would miss you if you left, that’s a problem. If you are in a church and would miss nobody if you left, that’s a problem. The plan for Christians seems to be to establish relationships with other believers with whom they gather frequently. If that isn’t happening, I’m not sure what’s left is even really a church, at least for you.

For people in such situations, I don’t know you well enough to know the reasons or how you should resolve the problem, but I believe you should act. If you don’t think the problem can be fixed where you attend now, meet with someone and explain just that. If it can be fixed, begin work to fix it. If your meeting is unfruitful, it’s probably time to find a new gathering of people who proclaim Christ, crucified, and will develop relationships with you. That’s a church.

My friend Michael is working on a book for “church leavers,” and I don’t expect to agree with everything in it, but I still recommend it, sight unseen.