Surviving a Church Split

As I walked into the church, I immediately sensed something was wrong.  The group had just lost their beloved pastor to an opportunity in another state, but the church’s collective emotional state exhibited deeper wounds.

It turned out that their pastor’s departure was the latest aftershock of an earlier earthquake—a church split—which had rendered the church depleted of both members and momentum.

Churches split for a variety of reasons, few of them justifiable and all of them painful.  It is the equivalent of amputation in a body. Their case was no different – except for the repetition.

The church had split three times in ten years.  As hard as it is to believe, they became accustomed to amputation as a means of “solving” church problems.

Church splits happen, but how do leaders survive one and bring their church back to health?

1.  Acknowledge what happened. In most cases everyone knows the split happened, but no one talks about it publicly.  Leaders, who usually bear the most severe wounds, often just want to put the split behind them. Yet we have found that failing to address the church’s corporate wounds leaves them to fester rather than heal and actually increases the chances of additional splits down the road.

2.  Grieve the loss of good friends.  What makes church splits so painful?  In a split, we many times divide from those we have known and loved for years.  The reality is that most who left the church were good people too.  A congregation needs to grieve such losses. We will likely see these people again at Walmart or at work and unless you release your feelings before the Lord, you may find it hard to be civil to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

3.  Discern God’s voice in the split.  Jesus threatened more than one church in Revelation 2-3 with corporate discipline if they failed to correct the issues He held against them.  Was the split in your church an act of divine discipline over other unresolved problems in your church? If so, how do you discern Christ’s voice in the pain such corporate discipline brings?

Here are some things to consider:

  • Is there a pattern of pain in the history of your church?  If Jesus has a problem with your church that you have not addressed, He will keep bringing it up until you do.
  • Was there a deeper issue, like distrust of leadership, of which the split was merely a symptom?
  • Did your leaders handle past crises, as well as the split, in a God-honoring way?

Church pain reveals the heart of a church and its leaders.  How your church behaved in the midst of the battle may make people aware of the attitudes and behaviors which require repentance.

 4.  Take steps to reconcile.  You might think this refers to reconciling with those who departed the church, but the primary concern is to reconcile with God over the split itself.  A split mars the beautiful picture of unity God designed for the His bride to portray to a watching world. A split is no small thing to Christ and church leaders must take responsibility and do what is necessary to make things right with Him.

Putting all this together may seem daunting, but others have blazed a trail for you to follow.  The book, Healing the Heart of Your Church, by Dr. Ken Quick offers such a pathway, providing a process for healing a wounded church in a spiritually sensitive way. A ministry like Blessing Point can facilitate the healing process if you need assistance from outside.

Whichever path you take, don’t put it off.  Surviving a church split, like surviving an amputation, largely depends on how quickly your church’s wounds receive attention.

How has a church split impacted you?

Mark Barnard serves as President of Blessing Point Ministries and is the author of The Path of Revival – Restoring Our Nation One Church at a Time and co-author of the Healing the Heart of Your Church Facilitator Guide.

10 thoughts on “Surviving a Church Split”

  1. I think that your first recommendation should be a high priority, talk about it! As you know our church split thirteen months ago here in Madison, Indiana. It was the culmination of decades of dysfunction. We could not hide from the dysfunction springing from mistrust, differing church leadership philosophies and power struggles. We had to address it. We did address it frequently with advice, comfort and perspective. We chose not sin with our tongue but we were candid with each other. In my experience, in our split there were three kinds of people left behind: 1. Those who were deeply grieving the loss of friends, 2. Those who were neutral and it didn’t seem to affect them one way or another and 3. Those who were celebrating the fact that the strife had finally come to a head. They were ready to move on without those they perceived as the guilty parties. We talked openly to the whole group about these three categories and how each one needed to process the situation in a godly way. This is a great article. Thanks! Peter A Joudry

  2. Earnest Elixer

    Thank you sir for a very inspiring word. I suffered such a thing in 2009, left the church for 5 months and went away on missions to India, put a prophet to oversight the ministry, he used is prophetic gift and stole the people.

    I lost almost all the families, I decided if people were to leave, then I will not stop them! I was left with two families. It had a tremendous impact on me, I would not continue, to this present stage I am inactive.

    I went through the process of healing and releasing. I am at peace now even if I go and serve another senior pastor.

    Thank you again for an insightful read.

    1. Earnest, you must have been shocked when you returned from India and found the situation that you did. I’m sure you learned some difficult lessons through that experience. Thank you for sharing.

  3. Deborah Roberts

    I sense a split in my Church, but the Pastor and primary Elder have meeting’s amongst themselves, decide on the direction of the Church, and have access to the churches Financial accounts. I dont have access to any Pastor’s numbers to get counsel or help. As a member I feel completely lost, and I dont feel the love of Christ there. What can I do to open up the Pastor’s eyes!!!

    1. Hi Deborah,

      Sometimes we can feel helpless when our pastor or church leaders seem inaccessible. If the leaders don’t realize things for themselves there is little a congregant can do other than pray that the Lord would intervene. If you are on the verge of a split in your church, the pastor is likely under a lot of pressure. Let him know you are praying for him and his family. I know this may seem obvious, but ask the Lord to show you what you should do. He has ways of giving us peace and direction in difficult church settings.

  4. Heartbroken member

    Our church has recently lost several families. At least one instance was due to unresolved issues involving youth being bullied, sexually inappropriate comments, and the family’s year-long attempt to get resolution without success. They feel that no one in leadership has really heard them, and worse yet, “promises” to address the situation were never carried through. The family feels betrayed and let down by leadership and told me that they left for the mental, spiritual, and physical safety of their children.

    These are people whom I love dearly and miss very much. I don’t know how to approach our leadership (I’m simply a member of the body) about the situation. To add to it, the family has used social media to help themselves try to heal and be understood, but that means that accusations surrounding their experience and the lack of response on the church’s part is out there for the world to read… while it goes unaddressed to the congregation. Any wisdom from you would be appreciated.

    1. Dear Heartbroken Member,

      Wisdom in this situation depends on discerning what is really going on. Here are two possibilities:

      If the issue your friends are raising is a one off concern in a generally healthy church, there may be things going on on a leadership level that you don’t know about which have led them to be slow in responding to your friends concern. You could and probably should express your concerns to an elder or church leader privately while at the same time avoiding the kind of public gossip your friends have fallen into via social media.

      But sometimes the issue is not the only issue. Sometimes God allows painful issues to arise in a church to get the church’s attention about something deeper that He wants the church to see. In their determination to be heard, the dear folk through whom the painful issue arises sometimes don’t go away quietly. If God has raised them up, the church’s pain will continue through your friends or from elsewhere until the church gets the message. What I have described is an expression of Christ’s loving discipline on a church (See Rev. 3:19 Jesus wrote that to a local church.) In such cases, it is pretty likely that the church already had a painful history and the leaders may have already lost the trust of the congregation before your friends voiced their concerns. If so, then a book like Healing the Heart of Your Church by Dr. Kenneth Quick can help. You could get a copy, and gift it to the pastor.

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