Category: faith

As mentioned yesterday, Craig Groeschel at LifeChurch.tv has a series of posts about challenging people to leave his church if they’re not behind the church’s vision.
Today he wraps up the series of four posts with a list of reasons he’s had to actually tell someone to leave his church:

• Teachers who taught false doctrine
• A leader who continued in adultery and wouldn’t end his sinful relationship
• A man who made repeated sexual advances at women
• A person who stalked one of our staff members
• A convicted child molester who wouldn’t stay away from the children
• A person who repeatedly threatened bodily harm to another person

I’ve only heard of two churches asking people to leave and both were handled differently. One church told a friend to not come back because she was addicted to drugs. To me – that’s the person who needs to be there for sure. But the church leadership apparently saw things differently. Secondly, a church “revoked the membership” of a member who continued to be involved in an affair. The great thing about this situation is men from the church continue to remain in touch with this person and meet with him as regularly as possible to help encourage him and bring him back to Christ. The man wasn’t simply hung out to dry to wallow in his sin. I think that’s a great example of grace – despite a man’s sin.

This might sound counterintuitive, but Craig Groeschel at LifeChurch.tv has a series of articles on getting folks to leave your church.
Groeschel suggests that if folks aren’t behind your vision or mission and moving your church forward then they’re dead weight.
Groeschel says he preached the church’s vision in an attempt to get everyone on board. If people weren’t on board with the vision, he asked them to find another church.
He even offered brochures from 10 other churches he knew and recommended. It was a serious challenge and 500 people ended up leaving.

I boldly but lovingly asked everyone to “sell out to Christ through a local church.” If it was at Life, great! But if they couldn’t fully buy into the vision, I asked them to find another church.
The next week, we had about 500 new seats for people who could get excited about the vision. Within a short period of time, God filled those seats with passionate people. Many of those who left our church found great, biblical churches where they could worship and use their gifts.
Everybody won!
That’s why I sometimes say, “You can grow your church by asking people to leave.”

Wow. Groeschel said churches also need to create environments where people can leave a church graciously.

To have a really healthy church, you need to develop a climate that allows people to leave your church gracefully.
The church I came from years ago was sort of like the movie The Firm. Once you were in, you could never leave–at least not without controversy.
If you left the church, many people thought you were:
1) Betraying the pastor
2) Abandoning your friends
3) Disobeying God
After someone left, they were treated like they were leaving Christianity. That’s a tragedy.

I can say I’ve felt some of that in the past after leaving other churches. Some of those relationships are probably strained today because of it others have been rebuilt or maintained because of mutual understandings and grace on both sides.

From this morning’s Bible study?
Why does it seem that the biggest and most publicized failings of Christians often come from those caught in the sins they’ve preached the most against?
Why does it seem that a churches with a “high standard” of righteousness in certain areas (i.e. pornography, drugs, alcohol, adultery etc) have many people who fall into the trap of sin in those very issues?

Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas is looking for a new audio director who will help the church transition from an analog audio system to a digital system (The Digidesign Venue).
It could be an exciting ministry for someone. Check out Church Video Ideas for more info.
I might be interested if it was closer and I didn’t love my church so much.
Which raises an interesting question. Should a church go outside it’s walls to hire a technical team, web designer, worship leader, secretary or other staff members? Or should a church look for people within the church already to fulfill those duties? Should positions be based solely on skill levels or more on the basis of availability and people who have caught on to the vision and goals of your church already?