You may have read this blog title knowing that my husband and I recently left the church we had been involved with for the past 3 years. Maybe you want all the juicy details. The gossip. The drama. I pray your sweet spirit is not looking for that. You will not find it here. I have seen too many families leave churches on a bad note. Hurting their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as they shoot a quick e-mail letting the staff know that that they will not be serving at church the next day. I have been that person to help clean up the mess they have left behind, to feel hurt, degected and awkward when I run into them, wondering if they hate me too because of the way they left.
This is not about why we left our church. It is about how.
First off, leaving a church is not easy. Especially when you aren't leaving for a "reason". You don't like the preaching style. You are angry about the way the church spends money. You have a funny feeling. They talk about Jesus too much. Their coffee is gross.
Hey, I get you. I have been to churchs that have gross coffee. Or no childcare. Or use flashy lights that make me dizzy.
However, these are not reasons to leave a church.
My husband and I started praying about church, our family and ministry. We were simply praying to have more sensitive ears to hear God and a sensitive heart to feel His direction. We were not praying about or planning on leaving our church. That is the beauty of it. We could truly see the evidence of God transforming our hearts and redirecting our ministry focus.
Our "plan" was to finish our last week of serving in Sunday School by the end of December 2010. We gave the Kids Ministry Director a month notice to let her know where our family was heading and to help her look for replacements. Shortly after that, my husband met with the pastor to let him know what God had put on our hearts.
Having gone through the pain of experiencing people, and not just anyone- fellow leaders and sojourners in planting this church, leave on a bad note, only causing division and hardship for their brothers and sisters in Christ, we made every effort to leave on a "good note". We bought children's Bibles for the Kids Ministry to be given to children who did not have a Bible at home. We thought of it as a parting gift. It was a need that our church had and it was one way that we could show our love and support for the church and staff as our family moved on.
Not everyone takes a family leaving a church well. We left knowing that not everyone understood our heart and reasons for leaving. Even now, 3 months later, when people learn that we are no longer attending that church, they gasp and ask why. As if they are anticipating a horror story. Waiting to hear the drama. Why can't leaving a church be seen as a move of the Holy Spirit in our hearts? God does not always call us to one place for our whole life, we often experience things during seasons in our life. My husband and I were single when we started going to the church and left married with children. Our life had changed drastically. And our hearts did too. Our relationship with the LORD had only grown deeper and been strengthened during the trials we faced in 2010 and during that time we set aside to stop serving for a season and seek the LORD's direction for our family.
So why did we leave our church? Are you ready for this? Go ahead and gasp! Let that anticipation fill, but don't let your sin-natured mind wander too far. We left because we felt called to. God has been moving in our hearts and lives for the past 7 months or so since we first felt His calling to start CWTrials- an extreme biking ministry dedicated to sharing the Gospel. That's it. No "big deal". But really, it was. Our leaving the church was an act of obedience to the LORD. It wasn't because what they were doing was bad, I often think of obedience as turning from something that was bad. This was not the case. Our obedience was listening to God and in Faith, turning our focus and attention onto what He laid before us. Can I tell you something- God has richly blessed us because of our obedience. Not solely based on us leaving the church, but creating a habit of obedience in our everyday lives.
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