I'm blogging this week from the message I preached this past Sunday (6-3-12) on "How to leave a church properly." Here are two ways in which one should not leave:
- Don’t leave puffed up.
What I mean is “offended, mad, upset.”
I Cor 13:4 “love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.”
Matthew 24: 10-12 indicates in the last day “many will be offended...due to the love of many will grow cold.”
The real issue is love. If we love one another, we’ll not become offended. We will be patient, kind, love suffering and patiently endure one mistakes and sins.
If you leave a church because you are offended, you will always be running.
- Don’t leave in a protest.
One here leaves with the idea that they are right and everybody else is totally wrong. So they are leaving this “bad church.”
Or...they didn’t get their way and they are threatening “to take others with them.”
I have very little patience with those who think their agenda or way is the best when no one in spiritual leadership sees it. It is as if no one in spiritual leadership walks with God or as the wisdom of God and this person is the only one who has it right.
To some people it has never dawned on them, “I may be wrong.”
This does not mean we don’t need each other’s opinion.We are all members of one body. You can bring what I need or the church may need. But to never be willing to submit your views or plans to the larger body of spiritual leadership is a definite flaw of pride and arrogance.
