Why You, or Someone You Know, Has Left The Church

I have also reviewed forums and statistics produced by other organisations from surveys that they have done to gain a better insight. Typically, they did not differ much from what I found from you and the others who receive this newsletter. That tells me that the issues are universal across all different churches, places and people.

I’d like to share with you the results of this work so far so that you can see what is happening in the church too. These are the issues as provided by you and the other people on my email lists.

 

Hypocrisy in the church
Could not break into cliques within the church
Didn’t feel welcomed in the church
Church peple were judgemental
Not being fed spiritual truths in the church
Non-biblical preaching
Preaching what people want to hear rather than biblical truth
Church doctrines are not scriptural
Lack of fellowship and support from congregation when person went through tough times
Didn’t feel like the pastor (and congregation) cared
Lack of communication from church
Forced to do work without asking – overbearing
Felt alone in the church
Church was not welcoming to people with disabilities
Felt the church was seeking only younger people
Felt like they had personally failed and were not good enough
Questioning whether they belonged in the church
Waning faith and obedience to the word
Felt separated by sin
Personal offenses
Personal pride
Not personally centred or focused on God
Churches are too focused on money and self-glory
Church position on COVID vaccination
Personal long term health problems
When you look at this list there are three glaring reasons that seem to underpin all of these responses.

Problems with the teachings and doctrines of the church
Problems with the people in the church
Personal problems that are separating people from the church
Now it may be that some of these overlap. For instance, are some of the personal problems people feel in item 3 being caused by the poor attitudes of pastors or other congregants in the church? To be honest, I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. There is no right or wrong answer as all of the reasons are the perspectives of different people and people can often perceive the same event in different ways.

As I have explained in the past few weeks, my reason for collecting this data is to build some teaching and training resources to help people overcome these church related issues based upon what the scripture says.

Each of these issues can be addressed, but some will be easier than others. My initial aim was to build a series to help pastors and ministers to “Teach like Jesus,” which will overcome some of the items mentioned above. But seeing this data, there is a lot of personal training and teaching that is needed too. I am especially concerned about some of the “I’m not good enough” type comments and personal failures. Following the teachings of Jesus correctly can overcome these issues, and so I am going to begin a series on Spiritual Warfare, which will address a lot of that.

As I look at the data, at a high level each of these can be addressed by focusing on what is most important. For instance, the teachings and doctrines can be overcome by preaching and teaching the doctrines of the Bible rather than doctrines of men. It’s about the truth rather than tradition. The personal problems of people can be overcome by learning the foundations of Christianity and focusing on spiritual warfare, as mentioned above.

But these are just my first high level thoughts as I looked at the data. It would be great if you could hit reply, William, and let me know what you think. Perhaps even your thoughts on the type of teaching you might find useful and whether it would be better written (email based), in audio (as a Podcast), or even video (on YouTube). Let me know what you think William.

So, this is what I have gleaned from you and the people on my email lists. Next week I’ll show you the data I have gathered from other sources and also the surveys of pastors and ministers who have left or seriously considered leaving the ministry. That is a very interesting and telling piece of information too as it gives us their perspective, and it is clear that they are doing it tough as well.


Taken From //freegiftfromgod.com/