As I've shared many times, when I began serving my first church as pastor I had no pastoral experience and no education beyond high school. I only knew that God had called me to minister and that He had called me to that church. I went there with one purpose: to preach the Word of God the best I could.
A funny thing began to happen. Some people from the church I attended before I began preaching started coming to the church I now served. The pastor's theology in that church was suspect, and they wanted to go where the Bible was being preached without compromise. Despite the fact that I had not contacted anyone or asked any of these folks to begin attending my church, several families made the change and moved their membership. It wasn't long before someone accused me of "sheep stealing."
I am the first to admit that I am not always the most tactful person on the earth. My response to the person who accused me of steeling sheep certainly reflects this! I explained that I had not stolen any sheep. It was not my fault if there was a hole in the fence, some sheep wandered over into my pasture and was fed so well that they couldn't get back through the hole.
We will always have church-hoppers. If they show up at your church you can be confident that within a short time they will leave for one reason or another. But, there are legitimate reasons for some people seeking a new place to worship.
There are churches today that have abandoned biblical teaching. Entire denominations have abandoned the clear teaching of Scripture on various issues. Anyone holding to an inerrant, infallible view of Scripture should leave such churches and find one that preaches sound doctrine. I had to leave one such church. Some of the pastor's messages were not biblically sound. I explained to him that my wife and I did not want our children exposed to such teaching so we had no option but to leave. The word later went out that we left because the choir got new robes!
No one should sit under false doctrine being taught. No one should remain in a church in which the congregation is assaulted week after week by the pastor. When I served as a Region resource minister one church member, who I knew very well, asked me to visit their church. She said the pastor's sermons beat up the members every week. I did visit and nearly walked out half way through the message. For 45 minutes he beat on the congregation. The problem was that I knew nearly everyone in that church and knew that they were a great congregation. They had done much more for a church their size than most until this pastor came. Even a work mule will quit working if it's beaten enough, and this church had been beaten enough. Several good members later left that church.
A third reason people will leave a church is that there is no reason for them to stay. There are committed Christian people who want to use their spiritual gifts to serve, and if the church has nothing for them to do, they will find a church who can use their gifts. There are people who want to grow in their faith, and if the church does not provide opportunities for them to do so, they will find a church that will. So many smaller churches complain about people leaving their church for larger ones, but if they do not offer people an opportunity to use their spiritual gifts they should not be surprised if people leave.
Jesus made it very clear that church leaders are to feed the sheep. If we are doing our job, we will lose very few people to other churches. Feed them the Word of God. Feed them with opportunities to use their spiritual gifts in service to others. Not only will you keep your sheep, you may find hungry sheep heading in your direction.
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