When Is It Okay to Leave a Church?

I was nervous enough during an interview on a nationally syndicated radio program when the interview took a sudden turn.

We had begun by discussing the nature of our work at Blessing Point Ministries.   At Blessing Point we come along side churches in pain and help them heal from some of the most woeful things that ever happen within church walls.

But during the interview a question arose that I wasn’t prepared for.  The interviewer asked, what do you say to folk when church gets so painful they begin to wonder about leaving their church . . .  when is it okay to leave a church?

A simple answer to that question does not exist.  I know from experience that church can sometimes become so painful that it will move the most faithful member to consider leaving.  My sympathies are extended to anyone who has made the gut wrenching decision to leave a church because of unbearable amounts of corporate pain.

On the other hand, as American Christians, we have largely come to view our participation in local churches as voluntary.  Joining our particular church of choice is often governed more by our culturally inbred right to choose than by seeing ourselves as a vital part of the Body where Christ has called us.

In contrast I can’t help but think of the commendable saints in the church at Sardis.  Now Sardis was a dead church walking (Rev. 3:1-6).  Jesus said as much.  No death is easy or painless, especially when it’s a church.  No doubt the church at Sardis experienced a great deal of corporate pain as it inched toward its demise.  But among the larger body Jesus commends a few of the saints for not “soiling their garments” in the way that most of the congregation had done.

This means there remained a faithful remnant at Sardis even when Jesus had major issues with the church as a whole.  It also means the faithful remnant did not jump ship.  They stayed put.  They could have gone off to plant the Second Church of Sardis, but no.  They were faithful even when the church was on its deathbed, even when being there would cause them great personal pain.

If nothing else the faithful saints at Sardis should give us pause.  We take from their example that personal pain and even corporate corruption are not the only barometers in deciding when to leave a church.

Does the Sardisians’ example mean you can never leave your church?  I found some helpful advice in John Stott’s book The Living Church.  Stott’s legendary faithfulness, as an Evangelical, to the Anglican Church might lead us to believe he would espouse never leaving one’s church.

But even Stott had his limits.  When imagining situations where it might be appropriate for Orthodox believers to leave their church, Stott offers the following:

• when an issue of first order is at stake i.e. one of the non-negotiable central doctrines of the faith
• when the offending issue is held not by an eccentric minority but has become the official position of the majority
• when the majority have silenced the faithful remnant not allowing them to protest the issue at hand
• when we have thoroughly explored every available option
• when after a period of prayer and wrestling we can bear the weight no longer

Stott sets a high standard, one that flies in the face of the ease with which most American Christians leave or change churches.  To be faithful to the Lord by staying in a troubled church (like the Sardisians) or to be faithful to the Lord by leaving (using Stott’s standards) depends not on our desires, but on hearing from the Lord.

Whether you stay or whether you go, be sure you’re hearing from the Lord.  Settle for nothing less, even if it hurts.  Without that assurance He may hold you accountable (at the judgment) for failing to fulfill your calling to the church you call home.

When do you think it is okay to leave a church?