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.â€
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.
