8 Terrible Reasons People Leave Churches

Perhaps more than ever before, people are leaving (or changing) churches en masse.

There are some good reasons to leave a church. What I’m seeing of late, though, doesn’t fit in the “good reason” category. The pandemic launched several more pandemics — fear pandemic, anger pandemic, political pandemic, racial pandemic, and a church pandemic.

The recent climate has given way to a mass exodus from churches, mostly for terrible reasons.

In this post, I outline 8 terrible reasons people leave churches.

If you’re a pastor, this may explain some of what you’re seeing. If you’re a church attendee, pay attention to these tensions!

3 Temptations Pastors Experience as People Leave Their Church

Right now, people are leaving your church, and it hurts.

I’m guessing every pastor in every church has experienced some amount of congregational exodus during the pandemic. 

I get it. I’ve been there. Several years ago, I took the position of lead pastor at a struggling church. And almost immediately, a handful of families decided to leave the church.

And they all felt the need to tell me they were leaving the church. And why they were leaving the church.

Guess what? It hurt.

Even though I didn’t yet know these people, it still hurt.

When people leave your church, it’s a form of rejection, and rejection is painful.

This pain has a name: Loss. When a person leaves the church, they take something with them AND create a temptation inside of us.

In this NEW POST, I outline three specific temptations every pastor must reject when people leave the church.

This is a 5 – 6 minute read. In a season like this, I think it’s worth the time.

7 Bad Reasons People Leave Churches.

I wrote a post a few months ago called “5 Good Reasons You Should Leave Your Church.”

This post struck a cord with many, but it hit me after publishing that while there ARE many good reasons to leave a church, there are some equally bad reasons, too. My guess (based on experience) is most people leave churches for bad reasons more often than for good ones. So as a counter to the previous post, here are a few terrible reasons to leave a church:

1. I’m not being fed.

Every pastor LOVES this one. If you are leaving a church because you’re not being fed, be prepared to leave the next church you attend, as well. As Christians, we should progress overtime to “self-feeders” and “other-feeders.” If you see feeding as the church’s job, you will always become “full” at any church over time and feel the need to seek out something new.

Just like an infant grows and becomes independent, we as Christians should not rely on the regurgitated food of preachers as our only source of feeding. “I’m not being fed,” is code for “It’s your job to feed me.” And it’s NOT the churches job to feed everyone equally. Most Christians just need to pick up a fork and feed themselves. That’s the best way to learn self-feeding.