A couple times at a church I’m familiar with, here in Portland, the lead pastor, has very kindly asked people to leave. I remember a specific time he just stood up and asked how many people had been coming to church for a year or more but hadn’t found a way to plug into the community. He then invited them to plug in, (which at this church means to serve or find a home group or work in a ministry) and then asked them if they hadn’t found a place that fit them, it might be time to try another church. It sounds rude, and the pastor wasn’t making anybody feel guilty, it’s just that he needed the chairs. He didn’t want to have to preach another service. The next week, there was a slight drop in attendance which freed up some chairs. I always admired that about this pastor.
To be clear, he hadn’t given up on them. And to be more clear, he hadn’t asked them to leave THE CHURCH. What he was doing was leading, he was saying this is where this community is going, where God has called us to go, and there may be other churches that God has called to just preach sermons and have people come and listen, perhaps doing ministry outside the community. This pastor felt very strongly that the sermons, and even Sunday morning, weren’t what defined the church he had planted, but rather it was the act of “doing” work “together.”
Perhaps I admire this for the wrong reasons. Perhaps I get a bit tired of the unwritten rule of be as absolutely friendly to everybody as you can, nearly kissing up to them. I wonder if that doesn’t make a group of people spoiled. That idea is certainly debatable. My “black and white thinking” readers will see it as one way or another, but I think this is largely contextual. And it’s also a matter of calling for each church, perhaps.
There are other church leaders who, perhaps lacking in maturity, are just offensive. They talk like shock jocks, like slightly cleaned-up Howard Stearns, just offending people and polarizing communities into people who are “with us” and “against us” (interestingly, this characteristic has been said to come from having been personally abused, needing to know who will submit to me and who won’t in order to feel safe) but this really isn’t what I’m talking about.
I think we are often afraid to say to somebody “You know, you don’t fit” because we might hurt them, so we get into relationships (and church is all about relationships) that simply aren’t right, rather than helping people move on to a relationship that is right for them.
The truth is, in your organization, there may be some people who simply aren’t a fit. It’s not that they are bad, it’s just that they aren’t really contributing anything, either because you haven’t provided a way for them to contribute (poor leadership) or because the system is allowing them to hang on as a pariah. Either way, something has to change, or else your church will become a place people come in order to be entertained.
Another pastor friend of mine planted a church several years ago. It was an offshoot of another church that was rightly falling apart due to divisions and lack of leadership. About 150 people came to that first meeting, and my friend stood up and asked everybody to really think about why they were there. He said that if anybody had come there with torches, with an axe to grind against the old church, to please leave. He didn’t want to build a reactionary church filled with people who were against something. He wanted to build a church filled with people who are for something, instead. The next week, only 50 people showed up. Years later, though, his church is healthy and vibrant and, well, quite large.
So what do you think? Are churches supposed to be warm and inviting to everybody, no matter what, or is it okay to identify people who just need to move on and find something else that fits them better? What’s your feeling about this? Aren’t there people in your church who, quite honestly, just need to move on?
* This article was accidentally published a day early (for a couple hours) and after reading some of the comments, I clarified the idea. Full disclosure.
Makes sense to me. The body of Christ is made up of a lot of different body parts- churches, which are in turn made up of individuals (cells). In the human body, a radical cell that doesn’t fit in is called cancer, and we do everything we can to get rid of it. In the body of Christ, a cell that doesn’t fit in is not necessarily a cancer cell- they may just be in the wrong place in the body and move to another body part where they belong, function well and contribute to the life of the body. If your church is an eye and the cell was created to function as part of the foot, they need to find their way to the foot and start doing what they’re made to do. Some cells are cancer cells and it would be a healthy thing to get them out of the body altoghether except for the fact that the Lord said to let the wheat grow up with the tares. In the case of the cancer cell, we have to allow them to hang on to the body and leech somewhere, unless they fall into grievous sin and refuse to repent. In the case of grievous, unrepentant cancer cell, the chemotherapy and radiation of church discipline and eventually excommunication is in order to preserve and maintain the health and integrity of the whole body.
In the pastorate, it is easy to become insecure, if you evaluate your self esteem and/or the effectiveness of your ministry by how many bodies fill up seats instead of whether you are doing what God called you to do. To exacerbate the situation, bills must be paid and that requires people who will give not only time but money. Our church closed for that reason- we were ministering to the poor and every person in the leadership turned over all monies received from secular employment to the church in order to keep the bills paid for a number of years, and we lived in community to cut living expenses to a bare minimum. We functioned as a church body for over 20 years before finally closing our doors to the public altogether. Some people would look at our church as failure, but, looking back, it seems almost miraculous to see what God could accomplish through a few people who gave everything. No pastor wants to entertain the thought of getting up to the pulpit to look at an empty sanctuary, so sometimes in their insecurity they fill their seats with people who don’t belong. Personally, I would rather have a few people who give their all than thousands who don’t fit or are cancer cells, so I have no problem with what this pastor is doing at all.
I just wanted to say that I asked God this very question! Do I fit the purpose of what God gave this Pastor or am I just in a holding place until everyone can just figuare it all out? I served for years in Auxileries and assisted in building the dream/vision of Pastor (s) but have always felt like I’ve been tucked in a corner until others can decide what to do w/me. Have you just made a place for me in your vision or am I assigned for purpose? I don’t want to go through my days left on earth wondering or waisting time in one place when I could be abounding in another. I’ve tried to shake my feelings many times and found that I must have a confirmation or answer or hope or direction from God. This BLOG came up after typing into the search and I wanted to thanks you for it! You’ve put things in perspective for me — appreciate it and I just wanted to say thank you —
Remain Blessed,
Louise
had other thoughts though good post
[...] a great article this morning by Donald Miller on an interesting topic about asking people to leave church. I was going to try and rehash his [...]