“Because if a church were really to look like Jesus,
people wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
10. People leave church when they can’t find community.
This is one of those reasons where it can serve as a reason why people come to church in the first place, and also becomes a reason why they leave– people want community. So many of us are tired of doing life on our own, tired of plastic American relationships, and are looking for deep, loyal, and authentic communal relationships. This should be a central goal of churches– building community. Why? Christianity was never meant to be lived out in the context of isolation, but rather in the context of community. When people can’t find community, can’t plug-in or access meaningful relationships, they split in hopes they’ll find it somewhere else. When a church learns to do community well, it is a life-giving experience. When churches fail to build community, church just becomes another item on your list that sucks the life out of you. I have experienced church both ways and can honestly say that I’m finished investing emotional energy into churches that don’t build a culture that values authentic community.
9. People leave church because they need less drama in their lives.
I don’t know about you, but my life always seems to have enough drama in it– I certainly don’t need anything that is going to add to the drama factor. So often, people seek out church because they need a reprieve, a refuge from the emotional drama of day to day living. However, far too often church relationships find a way to add to your drama. Now, I get that we’re all imperfect and that any group will have their own conflict, but some churches seem to do drama more than others. Our jobs, family dynamics and friendships provide us with enough opportunity to be gossiped about, back-stabbed, and pushed to the margins- we don’t need to add to that. Church needs to be a safe place where one can escape the typical relational drama we all face and instead experience loving support and acceptance. When church just becomes another area that is going to add drama to my life, I need to cut the cord and move on for my own sanity. Which leads me too…
8. People leave church because of unresolved conflict.
As mentioned above, any community is going to have conflict. However, a healthy and life-giving community is one that practices healthy conflict resolution in order to keep relationships safe and whole. Some churches do a fantastic job at helping individuals reconcile their differences in loving ways which deescalate and restore, while others have skewed ideas of what reconciliation looks like. Too often, wounded people are told, or are caused to feel, as if their emotional response to being wounded is somehow wrong or sinful. We can be encouraged to “forgive and forget”, “get over it”, or even told we have “no right to feel that way”. We fail to realize that wounded people need to have their feelings validated, and need to have a place to air their hurts in a way that causes them to feel heard. If we want people to stop leaving church, we need to develop radical humility and become the peacemakers that Jesus claimed would be blessed.
7. People leave church because of controlling leaders and unskilled teachers.
Leaders make or break an organization, and church is no different. When the pastor or church leader(s) come across as controlling (whether it is real or perceived) it creates an environment that doesn’t feel safe to people. No one wants to be controlled or dominated in church– not even the people who assimilate and eventually tolerate such environments. Instead, people want to feel heard and included in issues of decision making and long-term vision. Too often, it seems like the kids who are picked on in high school either become cops or pastors so that they can control other people- and they become increasingly intoxicated with their own perceived power. When people like me smell this, we bolt.
Likewise, you can have a church with a great community and a loving pastor– but a pastor who happens to be differently gifted outside the realm of preaching, and lose people. The longest 45 minute blocks in my life have been when I have been forced to sit and listen to a person fly the plane around the pulpit ten times, without ever landing. Bad preaching is miserable. If people feel like the preaching sucks, they’ll leave in search of something else. We need to make sure we place people in positions to serve in accordance with their abilities AND passions, not just their passions.
6. People leave church because they get turned off by social climbing, cliques, and nepotism.
Social climbing is simply how I would describe the phenomena where people have to acquire a certain amount of “social credit” with the people of influence before they can serve and be included. As a result, the popular folks at church amass followers, and power. Such a system requires you to play the “game” with people of influence if you want to be a fully included member of the group (leading to the formation of cliques). Some people, like me, refuse to do this in silent protest… instead believing that all people should be able to come together to experience God, equally. Nepotism goes along the same lines– we don’t want to see people elevated to their positions because they were of the right bloodline, or played the game with the right people– we want to see people elevated to positions simply on the basis of their skills, abilities, and calling.
5. People leave church when they feel like they need to become a carbon copy of an individual or ideal in order to be fully included and appreciated.
During the times when I have found myself church shopping online, one of the first things I look at is the church’s statement of faith. This isn’t so much because I care about what they believe (although, I obviously do) but because I want to know if I’m going to be required to be a detailed copy of everyone else to be accepted. When I see a ten-page statement of faith the spells out everything from “Who is God” to “Why we believe the rapture will happen next Tuesday”, it tells me that there will be no room for me to live, breathe, or be my own person– my acceptance will depend on whether or not I am a carbon copy of everyone else.
People want to be who God made them– they don’t want to be a carbon copy of who God made you. When we feel forced to fit into a predetermined mold as to what a member of this community must look like, we leave (or in my case, I don’t ever go to begin with).
Most people don’t want to be like everyone else, and when a certain culture tells them they must become a clone as a condition of acceptance, many will leave instead of submitting to such a dehumanizing experience. Continue reading →
Healing From Complex Trauma & PTSD/CPTSD 
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