If you need to catch up with this series — use the drop down calendar on the right, select August and read parts 1–4.
Ready for part 5 of this thing? Me too.
In our last installment of this series we talked about finding a church that preaches God’s Word faithfully ad pursues the purposes of Christ Jesus passionately and then…staying put! Stop shopping and taste testing congregations on the quest for the allusive holy grail. There’s no perfect church—period! And if there were one, you and I would ruin it the moment we decided to become a part.
So, the best thing we can do is find a body of believers who love the Lord and want to live for Him as fully devoted followers and to stay and become a healthy and vital part of the community. To “stay well” is to serve others well, love others well, give yourself away, live generously, and in every way—pont the way to Jesus Christ with your actions and words.
But what if you can’t?
Then leave. But “leave well.”
I have to tell you, even though this is a 5 part series (soon to be 6 — but it will end there — I promise 
) this has got to be the hardest, most frustrating area to do well. Can I shoot straight with you?
When it comes to leaving a church very, very, VERY few ever do so…well, “well.” Instead they:
- Leave for the wrong reasons
- Leave too slowly
- Leave too quickly
- Leave under false assumptions
- Leave causing unnecessary and ungodly damage to others
- Leave wounded
- Leave wounding
- Leave empty
- Leave angry
- Leave deceitfully
- Leave no trace
And probably a whole host of other really dysfunctional “leaving” as well.
Truthfully, when it comes to observing the way people abandon Christ’s Bride, it’s more like they are throwing away an out of style pair of shoes than the wife of God! One thing you almost never see is Christians “leaving well.” And I would love to be a catalyst for change in this highly damaging area of most churches so, with your permission (and even without) I’m going to dwell on this a bit and add some thoughts on what I believe God’s Word has to say about leaving and leaving well.
Until then.