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Guest Post: Leaving Our Home Church After 20 Years

DateSaturday, April 23, 2011 at 07:40AM

Based on the post “Do You Need to Go Home?” I invite you to tell your stories of leaving your home church. In this guest post my friend Rebecca Archer describes the process that lead her and her husband, Tony, away from their church-home after 20 years.
My husband and I were leadership, pillars in the church. It was “home” in every sense of the term. We were there for 20 years, participating in every level of ministry from preaching to cleaning the toilets and changing diapers in the nursery! Our identity was entwined there. Twenty years! But those last eight were pretty hard. Yes, eight years of difficulty.
To the congregation we stood in our places, confronting gossips and malcontents, soothing wounds made by the Senior Pastor and his wife, and counseling everyone to follow the Matthew 18 principle: “If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again.” (The Message)
However, in the leadership meetings? Whoa Doggie! Look out! We were confrontational! “What about this? What about that? You promised this, where is it?” Several times, when we started with our questions, one of the other elders would say, “I think we need to stop and pray.” As if asking questions and holding the leadership responsible was some sort of crime! 

We didn’t know what to do! Pillars do not leave. We figured that we would pray and that God would fix it somehow. And pray we did! We did NOT want to be a part of the malicious gossip or to participate in the destruction or division of a church! Christ paid a big price for His church and we feel it is a shame and sinful to carelessly harm her.
Finally, we realized that this two-faced stance had become a deception. What had begun, rightly, as a protection of the leadership had changed into a cloak to hide the sins of the leadership. Oh, not that we could see any overt sins! That was a pretty big factor for us. There was no great sin that we could identify or we would have done so! (Later, some of those sins became known….) Our silence to the congregation about our growing concerns about the ministry had been interpreted as agreement with them! To the leadership, we were the rebellious, cantankerous ones! To the congregation, we were a confirmation that “all was well.” The situation came to a breaking point.
After the eight years of buildup, there was no great explosion! Yet one more unjust micro-management situation came up and we said, “This is not correct. You must either acknowledge that you are in error, or we cannot continue to walk together.” My husband had a short, quite friendly “hallway meeting” with the pastor and it was agreed that our time together had come to an end. A few arrangements were made as to the particular details, and a date was set to bring us before the congregation and to “send us out with prayer” and so it was!
As we prayed about where our next church would be, both my husband and I felt the same – we did not want to float around churchless, nor did we want to “go shopping”!  That could take MONTHS because one visit isn’t enough to understand a pastor or a congregation.  We felt the Lord directing us toward a specific new work in town.  While we were awaiting our “farewell prayer” at the old church, we arranged a meeting with the new pastor and his wife in their home, asked a few important questions concerning doctrine, ministry theories, and emphasis, and we were “home” again! It took us awhile to heal from the shock and from the manipulation and control we had grown accustomed to, but then, we plunged into ministry again with joy! The new “home” opened doors to mission work and many other exciting relationships and experiences!
I wouldn’t trade those 20 years for anything. Home was a great “nursery” for us; training us in the Word, to worship, to minister, to lead, to follow, to confront, to stand against adversary and to hear God’s Voice. Leaving home was a very painful experience. However, it was also the doorway to a great, new adventure!
There are times when we must separate! We are human. It is part of our nature to disagree! Abraham and Lot, Paul and Silas, Jacob and Esau, they are all are biblical examples of human relationship separation. But it shouldn’t be the first thing you do! It shouldn’t come easy. It shouldn’t destroy the thing that God loves – His Church.




Thanks, Rebecca! Do you have a story about leaving your home church? I'd love to hear it. It doesn't have to be posted on the blog--I'd just love to hear your story. Drop me a note at Ray dot Hollenbach @ gmail dot com.

AuthorRay Hollenbach | Comment2 Comments |
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Leaving the Church

DateThursday, June 3, 2010 at 12:45PM

“I have more grace for people who have dropped out of church than ever before. Most of what we do on a Sunday morning involves 3-10 people talking, playing instruments, doing something; while everyone else (100-5,000 or so) literally sit and spectate. That's a mess.” ~ Samuel Yoder

“My wife and I have been on a journey to figure out what it means to be the church instead of just going to one.” ~ Chad Estes
“I am also concerned about the drawbacks of not joining with a group of believers on a regular basis.” ~ Ed Cyzewski

These are just a few of the comments from excellent conversation started when Jon Reid posted a thought-provoking piece about learning to love the very church leaders with whom he disagreed. If you are so inclined, you can follow this life-giving discussion by starting with Beautiful People?, Forget it: I’m Going to the Pub, and A Big Question that Matters Every Day.

Over the last two weeks we’ve been discussing the impact of the church on the lives of individual believers. Everyone has opinions about the church. Among Evangelicals these days, most of these opinions are negative. The focus of the Students of Jesus blog is about how an individual becomes a disciple of the Jesus Christ, so the discussion over the past few weeks has not been about the church in general, it’s been about each of us and our ability to follow Jesus--with or without the church.

What impact should the church have on our life with Jesus? In the book of Acts we read about the vibrant spiritual lives of the first believers. We read about incredible fellowship among Christians, testimonies of powerful works, and world-changing faith. It’s clear that the inspired scriptures push us toward an organized community of faith, possessing it’s own singular identity even as it’s comprised of individual Christians. When we look up from our reading and see the 21st century our experiences fall short of the Biblical model. Breathtakingly short. Heartbreakingly short.  Nearly everyone agrees that the weekly sit-and-listen mentality is not life-giving, nor does it realize the Biblical ideal.

And yet, here’s my concern: After 40 years of walking with God I have met plenty of unhealthy Christians who belong to a church, but I have never met a healthy Christian who does not belong to a church. What are we to do with this? The currently popular solution is to hang out informally with our believing friends and declare, “This is my church. These people know me and love me. I receive nothing from organized religion.”

I get it. The North American church is desperately sick, and in many cases the church hinders the spiritual growth of believers. But before we all decide have wine and cheese with the cool kids and call it church, I’d like to suggest that God has given us a few clues about what He thinks makes up a church. It’s really a book-length discussion--a life-length discussion, actually--but since we’ve invested four blog posts on the idea, here is one man’s list of at least six church disctinctives:

  • The church meets together regularly: Sunday morning isn’t the only possibility. In fact, Acts 2:42-47 suggests they met together far more than North Americans might find comfortable. In a variety of settings, for a multitude of reasons, followers of Jesus meet together regularly and share their lives together.
  • The church has a defined structure: Structure is built into God’s order of creation. Single-celled organisms reveal astonishing complexity of function; in the human body there is individualized function. Without the structure of a skeleton, the body cannot stand. These physical realities point toward spiritual truth. Amazingly, the scripture seems to endorse a variety of church structures, but every New Testament church had a recognizable structure. We can disagree on what that structure may look like, but it’s not possible to read Acts or the Espistles without recognizing  it’s importance.
  • The church provides authority: “Authority.” Just mention the word and people tense up! I feel the need to mention again that this blog site is not about big “ecclesiological” questions. Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, we all must personally come to terms with passages like, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” (Hebrews 13:17) Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus could be considered all about authority! Nearly everyone has a horror-story about abuse of authority in the church. It’s worth noting that authority without compassion and relationship makes a sham of God’s Kingdom, but compassion and relationship without authority misses God’s Kingdom entirely.
  • The church is a proving ground for love and forgiveness. “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3: 12-14) How can we live these words out apart from our families, or the church--which is the family of God?
  • The church equips God’s people. Christian maturity requires a nurturing family atmosphere. Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the development of Christian character thrive in a healthy community. Entertainment apart from equipping is antithetical to God’s plan for the church. If there's no equipping going on, it's not fully the church. It’s lab, not lecture, and it's not recess, either.
  • The church provides a unique corporate witness: The have been exceptional individuals throughout history. Saints and geniuses larger than life, and because they are are so exceptional, they are easily dismissed as individuals, even freaks. But who could dismiss an entire community of faith? “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” said Jesus in John 13: 34 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The early church would either get you healed or care for you until you died. WIdows, orphans and outcasts of the first century knew there was a refuge called “the church.”

Object if you will: it’s easy to do. The church has failed in every area. Today’s post is not a defense of the way things are. The church in North America is desperately sick. Something must change--and I believe the change begins with us as individuals. If you must leave your current church, then go. But where? If you can find a group of believers attempting to fulfill these ideals you will land in a safe place. Leaving a sick church may be the best decision. Ignoring God’s plan for your personal growth as a disciple never is.

AuthorRay Hollenbach | Comment15 Comments |
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