Numbers of gifted persons and organizations have studied the phenomenon of the church “back door,” the metaphorical way we describe people leaving the church. And there will always be the anticipated themes of relocation or personal crises. We should recognize those issues, though we can respond to the latter more than the former.
But all the research studies of which I am aware, including my own, return to one major theme to explain the exodus of church members: a sense of some need not being filled. In other words, these members have ideas of what a local congregation should provide for them, and they leave because those provisions have not been met.
Certainly, we recognize there are many legitimate claims by church members of unfulfilled expectations. It can undoubtedly be the fault of the local congregation and its leaders.
But many times, probably more than we would like to believe, a church member leaves a local body because he or she has a sense of entitlement. I would therefore suggest that the main reason people leave a church is because they have an entitlement mentality rather than a servant mentality.
Look at some of the direct quotes from exit interviews of people who left local congregations:
- “The worship leader refused to listen to me about the songs and music I wanted.”
- “The pastor did not feed me.”
- “No one from my church visited me.”
- “I was not about to support the building program they wanted.”
- “I was out two weeks and no one called me.”
- “They moved the times of the worship services and it messed up my schedule.”
- “I told my pastor to go visit my cousin and he never did.”
Please hear me clearly. Church members should expect some level of ministry and concern. But, for a myriad of reasons beyond the scope of this one article, we have turned church membership into country club membership. You pay your dues and you are entitled to certain benefits.
The biblical basis of church membership is clear in Scripture. The Apostle Paul even uses the “member” metaphor to describe what every believer should be like in a local congregation. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Paul describes church members not by what they should receive in a local church, but by the ministry they should give.
The solution to closing the back door, at least a major part of the solution, is therefore to move members from an entitlement mentality to a servant mentality. Of course, it is easy for me to write about it, but it is a greater challenge to effect it.
May I then offer a few steps of a more practical nature to help close the back door by changing the membership mentality? Here are five:
- Inform church members. Though I do not have precise numbers, I would conjecture that more than one-half of church members do not have a biblical understanding of church membership. Providing that information in a new members’ class can move an entire congregation toward a servant mentality.
- Raise the bar of expectations. We have dumbed down church membership in many congregations to where it has little meaning. Clarify expectations of members. Again, doing so in the context of a new members’ class is a great way to begin.
- Mentor members. Take two or three members and begin to mentor them to become biblical church members. After a season, ask them to mentor two or three as well. Let the process grow exponentially.
- Train members. Almost 100 percent of pastors agree that their role is to train and equip members. But almost three-fourths of these pastors have no plans on how they will train them (see Ephesians 4:11-13). I will address this issue more fully on my blog next Wednesday.
- Encourage people to be in small groups. Those in Sunday school classes and small groups are more likely to be informed and functioning church members. In other words, there is a much greater likelihood of a member with a servant mentality being in a small group than not.
What are you doing in your church to close the back door? What are you doing to move members from an entitlement mentality to a servant mentality?
Posted on January 21, 2013
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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A followup to the above:
According to Mr. Rainer’s linked-in page, he was a Senior Pastor in four different churches in the ten year period from 1984-1994. That is an average of “serving” for two and a half years at each Church.
To be fair, Mr. Rainer self-reports that he “served” two years at three of these churches, and four at the last. We have no idea whether Mr. Rainer has broken himself of church hopping after 1994, because he was not listing the churches he has been in, but only the work history he wishes to sell himself by. (Think on that.)
Mr. Rainer has provided adequate evidence by his own words, as to what character trait his flocks had exampled to them in his “ministry” to them. And I believe he has self-identified correctly.
It is so appallingly predictable.
Why are there laity who leave a church? Probably for the same reasons that so many clergy leave a church.
Look around in your present church. Ten years from now seventy percent of the laity and the leadership will be somewhere else. Some for good reasons. Some for bad reasons. And guess what? Those thirty percent who stay will also stay for good and for bad reasons.
Honestly, Mr. Rainer’s article convinced me of only one thing….I have no interest in letting him or anyone who esteems him have access to me or mine. I got a strong enough whiff for a lifetime.
I am an elderly person. Most Sundays I spend tending to two of my sisters who reside in separate rest homes. The Sundays I can go to church, I do not, because those in charge keep the temperature in the church so cold that I can not concentrate in the service. This is year round, summer and winter. They have been aware of this for years and seem not to care. I don’t expect them to cater to my needs, but at least set the temp half way. Many others feel the same way. I would love to be able to fellowship with fellow Christians on Sundays that I can go, but I can not put myself in a position to get chilled and get sick. I have resigned myself to the fact that this is the way it will be and learn to live with it. My relationship with the Lord is intact. He understands and knows the situation. And my ministry at the present time is serving at the rest homes as long as I am able. Very few to none churches are involved in this much needed ministry.
I have just read this and feel compelled to respond although I have not read through the myriad of comments. I have been at my current church 21 years. I have prayed for that church and served in that church. I came there a young mother expecting her fifth child while my husband and I had endured one crisis after another. We were totally parentless by 24 and 28. I have no siblings. He had two, but one died two years ago before the age of 49. My husband was injured on the job back in the early 90’s and was subsequently out of work over three years. By the time we started at this church we had no one and nothing. We had been raising the current kids with no assistance. We wound up having a few more. Very few cared. No one offered assistance when babies were born, apart from a couple of meals. (The church is over 300 people.) Even though people knew we have no family, we were not invited over for holidays. When we had no food or money, no one was there. When I had a couple of injuries, no offers of help. When my son broke his leg, when my daughter had surgery…. nothing. And just now, my son was SHOT on Christmas Eve 2017, a boy who spent a decade in that church before moving into adulthood… and yet again… silence. We had some response from two pastors we texted, but not ONE SINGLE PHONE CALL from anyone at church. Not one offer for a meal when I all I could do for days was tremble and shake and be close to a break down. There were a couple of fb messages, but mostly, silence. We already have nobody, and the treatment we receive at the hands of the church emphasizes that. I leave church crying more often than anything. I am not looking to be the center of the church’s universe, but I AM looking to be a PART of their universe. So my desire to leave is because to me one of the fundamental aspects of the church is to be a church family, where we can bring our hurting selves into this divine hospital and receive at a minimum some love, caring, and wise and holy words to keep us charged up to go back into our daily chaos and hell. But when the church hurts those already wounded, I go back into the world more callous and unloving modeling after what we have already experienced. I know there are no perfect churches. I know I am not perfect. But to allow one family who NEEDS a family so badly to continuously go ignored in my opinion is nothing short of emotional abuse. And like so many abused people, it’s hard to up and leave, because I have the mentality, it WILL get better. OR…. if only I do the right things, say the right things, THEN they will notice us. Or I accept the blame articles like this infer and assume it’s all my fault, and I am so selfish and entitled (I am an orphan for goodness sake, losing my mom as a teen!) that I am just too uppity to expect nothing less than everyone doting on me 24/7 and I go back into the fray getting beat up again and again because somehow it is totally my fault. My kids are now hurting people distrusting of churches and Christians. I wish it would only affect that, but they are human and it DOES affect their relationship with Christ as well. Maybe if I had left over a decade ago they wouldn’t be so afraid of people and would view God as the loving, but just, Father He is. Until churches are willing to address their favoritism for certain people, and the fact they allow certain families to be ignored, this will happen over and over. I have never seen more favoritism and partiality anywhere in my life, not even public schools, than I have in a church. It should not be about popularity, but about need, and uplifting the downtrodden.
My parents left a church recently because the Pastor had this great idea to follow something that was not Biblical. There must be other people who leave because of that reason too. I believe that there are many strong fundamental Christian people leaving churches because they think they need to introduce ‘new things’ to get more bums on seats. They aren’t concentrating on the Bible based teaching getting people to know Jesus and building on that foundation.
The pastor’s wife of my church is a self proclaim hoarder. The church is a big mess building. Rooms, classes and offices piled with stuff because she doesn’t want to get rid of them. The kitchen pantry also full of stuff and mice feces everywhere. My husband and I used to clean the church for about 5 month and just recently quit the job because we could not stand to see this mess. We were witnessing how one Sunday School class was slowly pilling up with junk. It’s so sickening, I don’t know how much longer we could stay. The pastor is a great shepherd and teacher,he is absolutely wonderful man. We love him and we love the people. But those mess really make me sick!
Obviously Mr. Rainer has not actually spoken to people who have left. We left the institutional church almost three years ago, and it was definitely not because we felt entitled. The main reason was because the modern institutional church is not biblical in structure. We hear lip service about how the “people are the church,” but that is not really put into practice. No scripture saying to build a building, pay a staff, have a youth or music minister, or even a paid “pastor,” and yet these things are the sacred cow of the church. Until Mr. Rainer understands what “church” really means (as in the body), he will never really know the answer to why people are leaving. Remember, the bible tells us more than once that God does not live in a house built by the hands of man. We left the building to keep the faith.
I disagree with the assumption of this post that if someone leaves a church, it is their own fault. My husband and I are struggling to keep up my older home because we don’t have the funds, yet our church spent over $100,000 on a “worship enhancement”, which included all kinds of fancy electronic stuff. My old floors are in bad shape, yet this church, whose old carpeting was fine, just installed all new carpeting. Yet, they are always asking me and my family for money. The pastor and his wife are living very nicely, more so than most of the congregation. You would be amazed at all of the perks and benefits that pastors and their families have, that regular church goers don’t have – not just from the church, but from local businessses. My son has a friend who is a Pastor’s son, and he tells me about all this stuff. And, we don’t go to a megachurch, just a regular church. Not only that, most of the people there are wolves in sheeps clothing. There are so many cliques, infighting, and political wrangling. The pastor and his wife are showered with love and attention, yet many regular members of the congregation are ignored. There are like 2 or 3 people there who are in charge of the various programs, and they take pleasure in excluding other people from volunteering and helping, by refusing to return phone calls when I’ve called to offer to help volunteer. One lady even told me up front to my face not to even bother to call her, because she would not call me back. Some of my friends from the church had the very same thing happen to them as well. I went to the pastor for help with a personal problem, and he said he couldn’t help me and dismissed me. He didn’t offer to pray for me, or even share a verse of scripture with me. I was treated like a leper. I feel that many religious institutions these days are just businesses and social clubs. I still follow Jesus, pray every day, and read and study the bible every day, and serve the Lord every day in many various ways. Jesus is my best friend, and I will not let any religious spirits take that away from me. I have high functioning autism, and I suspect this is why a lot of people at church don’t like me. But Jesus made me that way for a reason, and that is OK with me.
I understand your feelings … My husband has Parkinson’s and Dementia and because he doesn’t talk or act like the other men … he gets ignored … whatever happened to offering “a cup of cold water in my name” … all my guy wants is for someone to accept him and include him … some one to sit and talk to him about “the good ole days” … he loves to reminisce but people won’t take the time … I have him with me 24/7 … and I could use a break … it is good that we are spreading the gospel to all the world with mission trips … but what about those with disabling disorders and their caregivers? We walk a very lonely road.
So sorry to hear that, not the first time I’ve heard it and it is very hurtful. Some people are able to contribute to a church others are not in a position to do so, they are not any the less important, God loves them equally. A lady in a big church which I attended a couple of times said to me, I get ignored because I don’t have a husband. I know exactly what she means as a single lady myself, I’m not in the ‘in crowd’ those that have a big voice and talk over other people.
My husband has been attending the same church for most of his life- he’s 52. I’ve been attending this church since 2000 and we were the first couple married by the current pastor. So, back in 2013 and 2014, my husband became very ill, and instead of being able to attend every Sunday, we missed 9 months of services. No one called to check up on us, and the pastor who knows us and sees us as we sit in the same place when we are there, apparently never even noticed we were missing. My husband has been a Deacon and I worked in the office for a while- I was let go in January- and only one person let me know they were praying for us…I am the only one working in my household right now, so it was a big deal to lose the job. Meanwhile, my in-laws missed many weeks because my mom-in-law had a broken wrist and didn’t feel able to do much. No one asked about them either- and they have been attending that church for as long as my husband. People rarely say hello to us anymore and I feel like we are un-welcome and intruding. Many years ago this church was much more welcoming. I can’t figure out what we are doing wrong- we smile at people, say hello, take showers, etc.
so what do you do when the level of ministry and concern are not met. I’m dealing with a pastor at my church of 30 years, whose attitude is “i don’t do hospitals” – should I stick around anyway and say “oh well, i just happen to go to a church where the pastor won’t visit the sick??” Pastoral care is a main reason people go to church. Anyone can turn on the TV if they want a Preacher. Listen, we have a crisis of church leadership going on in this country which can be seen in ALL denominations. Ministers and Priests seem to be focused on the job and trappings, and have lost the importance of being “called.” Blaming dying churches on the people is like blaming a losing team on the crowd.
My sister left the church because it depressed her. Also, there’s no functions for singles in any church. My church is nice (I live on Long Island), but I was upset they had a Valentines thing for married people! My complaint fell on deaf ears.
Let’s face it, single people are lepers of all churches – Catholic or otherwise.